2004-07-16

The Over-Blogging of America

When JohnAnthony creates a blog then you know this has gone too far. What is everyone's fascination with blogs? Why would anyone want to read some stream-of-consciousness garbage written by a complete stranger? Can we commission a study please? I'm serious.
 
One question that you have to consider: is anyone actually reading the thousands of blogs that exist? How many people actually visit these sites on a regular basis? These results just in: not many.
 
Sure, we don't have scientific data on that, but it makes sense, right? And anyone who starts a blog probably realizes that this is the case. Now that leads to the question: why write a blog that no one is going to read?
 
I wrote a piece once, called "Why I Write About George Orwell," that dealt with this issue, though in a pre-blog context. Writing is a release. Anyone who writes will tell you that. It just so happens that thanks to the prevalence of the Internet, the world is just now waking up to this realization.
 
Deep down, people always wanted to write, but they just didn't know the form that it should take. Blogging just gives them excuse to do what they've been craving. Its really the same principle of a diary or a journal, except you get the added bonus of having the possibility that someone might stumble upon your writings and enjoy them.
 
Possibility. That's all it takes. It doesn't matter that no one actually reads them. It doesn't matter that there's 2+ billion words floating around in cyber-space unaccounted for. It just matters that someone might read a piece called "The Over-Blogging of America" and enjoy it. And that's enough for me.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I join something then you know that it will then degrade into something that can never be recovered, even by the miracle of digital technology and Digital Versatile Discs.

Yet again, this is just another example of what the world is ill equiped to know...

Gabe said...

Brock and I felt no one ever read our Blog, then...Josh finds ours and begins his own.

Brock said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Brock said...

Erm, ok, I didn't remove that last comemnt. Glitch? Either way, I was simply agreeing with the statement that "writing is a release". And if that's the case, then hurrah for blogging.