Blogging overload, blogging mainstreamingness, and more
Blogging overload - sometimes I’m just in the mood to read some people’s posts, and sometimes I’m not, and sometimes I’m just in the mood to post without having read, and sometimes to read without posting. Sometimes I post a lot, and sometimes I post a little. And I, and my readers, should be fine with that either way - as am I with others not posting nearly as frequently either.
Subscribing is not a legal contract to read their content. It is not a moral contract either. It is a technological statement of file access frequency.
The blog world mirrors “reality” and part of reality “mirrors” the “blog world” but a lot of reality is separate from it.
When people one day realize “hey, why do we read this silly columnist or watch this silly talk show host when we could do just as good” and then go and do it just as good, if not better, on their website - then having a website/avatar will catch on. Until then, blogging is only for those people that have the “audacity” to imagine that they have interesting content worth sharing - which is not “normal people” because “normal people” are the ones that are destined to become cogs in the machine, and “real people” (a. k. a. bloggers) are the kind of people who dare to go against the machine, or at least to try to change/redesign parts of it.
Blogging commoditizes content, which means notions of “normalcy” wind up not being well mediated - and so people who crave being “normal” probably not only dislike the concept of blogging (it shows how “abnormal” a person is) but also reading other people’s blogs (it can challenge their notion of what “normal” is and make things very confusing).
“Normal people” or those that would be “normal” want only those icons that help reinforce their notion of normalcy and what it takes to make people normal - because that is what made them who they are and who they want to be.
Now, I’m being kind of hard on non-bloggers here. Don’t get me wrong - there are some good people out there that are neither “normal” nor “blogger”. But they’re good people none the less - but until they blog, they won’t be able to fully utilize the power of the blogosphere to enhance the reach of their goodness. “Normal” people, however, will probably never blog, for the aforementioned reasons.
Candy Daniels Says:
Re subscribing, I agree with you that one shouldn’t feel obliged to read all content that one subscribes to. But personally I just can’t handle it when someone posts eg 20 items per day. I very quickly fall behind and lose all motivation to read them. Maybe it means I need some context and history in order to read someone’s blog - ie I feel I’m missing something if I only read 10% of what they post. It’s a personal thing.
Interesting point about ‘normalcy’ and blogging. The people I subscribe to tend to have unique viewpoints and write original content that challenges me, rather than re-hashing what others say. So in this sense, yes I agree that blogging is a good outlet for that kind of person. The jury is still out with me re the value of blogging to ‘normal’ people.
btw how do you see this concept of normalcy/blogging fitting into your “Blog as Borg” theory? Is it possible to think of the blogosphere as one great big system of knowledge, or can it only be viewed subjectively by each individual? I don’t know the answer, but subjectivity and individuality are things I’m interested in right now…