Greenbelt reflections (ii) - blogging and diares

"I blog, therefore I am" was a panel discussion on blogging. A couple of interesting things remain logged in my head. One was the anomaly of having semeone on the panel who'd only been blogging about 6 weeks, while the Grandfather of blogging, TallSkinnyKiwi, was sat on the back row. Now of course the Kiwi is a mellow man and didn't take it personally. Furthermore, he is a generous and wise man, and is the first to point out that newbies have as much to say as experts. All the same it seemed a bit odd to me, and I had to resist the urge to insist that I swap places with him. Hat tip, TSK.

The other was a theme raised by two comments from the "floor". One commenter issued the challenge that maybe bloggers are insufferably arrogant in thinking that their personal journals are of interest to the wider world. Another asked whether Samuel Pepys would have blogged, had he lived in the 21st century, and if so, would his diary then have been lost forever, given the somewhat transient nature of internet publishing.

These comments both made me think that although blogging has elements of personal diary about them, they are not identical to diaries at all....

I read a pile of stuff about diaries as literary form in the process of reading for my PhD (and, as is the way with these things, ended up with about 2 sentences on the subject in the final copy...) but a private diary is really the only kind of writing that is specifically and deliberately kept without the intention or likelihood of anyone else reading it. In other words, it's a different kind of writing precisely because it is not writeen to be read. Public blogs, however, are written to be read - even if only by a few friends - so they may resemble anything from a newsletter to a book. Brian Eno managed to get a name check in my PhD because he so succinctly described the profound difference int he writing experience when you suddenly begin to write (or edit) a personal journal for the purposes of publication.

Blogs, of course, are a different kind of medium, sometimes using a mix of image, moving image, hypertext etc, as well as straightforward text. So that makes them more like a magazine than a book. And they may also have multiple authors, and will probably have commenters, again making them more magazine-like. Nothing like a diary at all, in fact, with the exception of the day-by-day entries.

As to wether Pepys work would have been lost had he blogged it, I can't say, but (granted that its an ahistorical and imaginative leap) I wouldn't be at all surprised if he would have liked to blog.

Comments

[Anna]

Transient nature of internet publishing? Somehow the embarrassing stuff stays around FOREVER!

[James]

For those who might like to see what Pepys' blog would have looked like, there is of course http://pepysdiary.com/ :)

Kester's comments about Pepys made me chuckle as I had a screenshot from that site on my laptop ready for my talk in Tank.

[Wulf]

Just imagine what St Paul could have done with our technology; what a great way of keeping in contact with the wide network of people he supported (and doubtless the source of many pastoral headaches as well)!

[Ben]

have you seen http://www.pepysdiary.com/? Every day an excerpt from the diary is posted, sort of like a blog.

[Brian]

One thing I find interesting about blogs is that some people write almost nothing about themselves, so that the blog becomes more of a place to put their collected writings than a diary. A traditional diary is more likely to be personal, probably because it was probably not intended to be read. This is, of course, in complete contrast to the blog.

On this subject, I remember reading an article predicting that the blog would mean the death of Bridget Jones-style books because people can read real-life stories instead. Maybe the author had a point, but I still like some good old Adrian Mole!

[Caroline]

One of the reasons I have started to blog is that it's a way of seeing what i'm thinking. "How can I know what I'm thinking until I read what I'm writing?" and sometimes I find the process of writing takes me to surprising and illuminating (for me) places.

Then, of course, there is the existence of a readership. That shapes the way I write, I have to try (and sometimes succeed) in explaining myself. That is a great discipline to my thinking. And then, joy of joys, there are the comments. My big regret is that I don't get enough of them and I worry that this is a result of failures in my writing, but I for one want the debate the doubts and the questions.

Finally, there's a community of bloggers who I have come to read, value and from whom I learn so much.

..and I'm still waiting for a seminar from Maggi on Coleridge and poetic structure! :-)

[ConradGempf]

Someone in our panel's audience asked if blogging was the new Vanity Press publishing outlet. It's an interesting question because in some ways the answer is yes, although any writer who blogs would hate to say so. But while I agree 100% that it's different from a diary in the ways you mention; it's also very different from publishing. I'm thinking that publishing is about content and creates a relationship between reader and writer. Blogging, for me anyway, is more ABOUT the relationship and, as it happens, content comes into it.

[maggi]

Brain and COnrad - interesting points, but there's a further aspect to this - some people write in a personal style but don't actually give away the details of their personal life; some people write in a personal style but it is largely fictitious. I'm interested to see how much some blog readers THINK they know about the person they read, when what they really know is (consciously or subconsciously) controlled by the writer.

[brodie]

on your last point Maggi is that not the same as in real life? some people let you "in" to their life quickly while others present a "front" keeping you on the outside. We know each other in different levels, so I know lots about some of the people I work with, but there is lots of basic stuff that's missing too. Perhaps the test for how well you know someone whose blog you read frequently is would I know what to buy them for their birthday?

[Kathryn]

I guess I probably fall too often into the error of giving too much of myself away (not just on my blog, I fear). I simply can't sustain an alternative, modified persona so wysiwyg in the crossover from blog to reality. This means that I'm no longer terrified of meeting readers irl: if anything, they probably know me "better" via the blog than had I met them conventionally and had to plough through all the preliminary layers of social interaction before we hit the interesting bits. I so value the community that develops through blogging,- a host of people I would never otherwise have encountered, whom I can now think of as friends. Of course,it could all be a delusion, and I could be holding forth to one madman in South Mimms, and not the global community I envisage...but I don't do cynicism, so will retain my rosy specs.

[maggi]

Brodie - I agree, but it's interesting that people often withhold that observation when it comes to writing, readily believing that the author and the "internal author" are one and the same.

Kathryn - I sometimes have that paranoid feeling about a mad person in South Mimms. But better, I think, to live in faith and get caught out once in a while than to go down the route of cold cynicism. So, like you, I keep believing in people, knowing full well that somtimes I'll get caught out rose-tinted.

[ash]

This is interesting... I disagreed with the panel somewhat about the nature of blogging, as I have written here. I have been blogging for 5 years now, but am newer to these circles: a few months or so.

My experience of blogging has been as a personal diary. I wrote how I thought, and I didn't much care if noone read it, unless I was asking a question. I would occasionally post up my poetry, but aside from that is was mainly about me, my thoughts etc.

Contrary to what the panel suggested, I did get readership: even though I probably wouldn't have read my blog if I wasn't me. Also, the community I was a part of: which predates Blogger, Typepad, Livejournal etc. by quite some way, was called "Open Diary." This meant that people were generally drawn to it to be a diary that was veiwable by others (although you can restrict access to varying degrees... from Private, Open, Favourites Only or Members Only).

So I think it's a varied medium, and is one that has evolved considerably since it began! (I remember having to learn code to make things bold even).

[Liz]

Ahh Brodie - bless you for your comment.

As the token shallow person on the blogging panel that Maggi refers to, I feel somewhat vindicated. I may whittle on about the things I love (gigs, art, shopping and hair colours etc) and rant about the things that annoy (L'Oreal advertising etc), but at least friends that read would know what to buy me for my birthday :-)

New shoes :-D

Shallow as a puddle, but happy with it ;-)

[Rix]

Blogging has the advantage of instant gratification. But I compare it as much to scrapbooking as to keeping a diary. One pastes in links instead of newspaper clippings.

[John Davies]

I have to break my silence over this self-imposed 'shallow' tag, Liz. Gigs, art, shopping and hair colours etc, these are the very essence of everyday life and because of that, by definition, they're not shallow at all. They're what we do, they're who we are, they're how we live.

The shallow ones are those who can pontificate at length on all sorts of ethereal topics, never revealing a thing about themselves, never connecting with their or anyone else's essential everyday life experiences ....

D'y'know, I feel a lot better having got that off me chest. Hope you don't mind.

[daniel]

First I must say I had a slight chuckle at "Grandfather of blogging, TallSkinnyKiwi," (June 2001 oh my!) the perception of such somewhat proves points made in the comments on how we are perceived online and IRL, and even some of the similarities b/w the two ways of projecting/perceiving (which aren't really similarities as they are simply parallel embodiments of more basic human ways of being), some of which I make mention of here (I've started a new article that is somewhat contrary to that one, which actually makes mention of the transient nature of web publishing etc, but for the purpose of this comment, that last article works better ;).

I think, back to your post, that one misses the point of blogging (and web technologies in general) when they try to frame them within the scope of existing mechanisms (specifically here we're talking about the publishing industry). Of course we are always going to learn about and interpret new things in the context of the old. However the web has presented such a radical change to the way we approach these issues, that radical thinking about where to place these technologies and how to use them is required. Interestingly, trying to figure out how to make money from them sometimes is the greatest help in this journey -- interesting that traditional publishers of books and magazines (your examples) tend to flounder in these new waters. But the completely infant realm of podcasting just saw two of its original business leaders, podshow and odeo, get millions in investment monies to try and forge a way ahead. (Yeah capitalism!, he says sarcastically.)

POINT: podcasting (just for example) isn't radical because it is just radio, it's radical in that it is NOT just radio. So many things are different about it: distribution, advertising, not to mention a large portion of the technology behind its production. Same can be said for many of the technologies we are presented with today.

[Bene Diction]

**I'm interested to see how much some blog readers THINK they know about the person they read, when what they really know is (consciously or subconsciously) controlled by the writer.**

Those of us that use an online name such as myself, or The Saint at DogFightatBankstown would be good samples if you took a shot at that.:^)

[andrew]

i was happy to be in the back and hear some fresh voices. wouldnt have it any other way. even insufferably arrogant old men like myself need to hand things over.

great to hear the bloggers speak and hear the questions (and concerns) from the audience.

hey - i see you are reading Nigel Slater's Appetite - which is the BEST food book on my shelf and is nearly worn out. I also have "Real Food". Nigel is my food guru.

[Rix]

It's very difficult to build a regular readership around a personal blog that doesn't stick to one general theme. Someone comes back for the politics & finds spirituality; looks for religion & there's something about the local weather. Yet, this episodic, scrapbook quality is what most attacts me, keeping me interested in the medium. Life is really series of digressions, asides & non sequiturs.