Personal blogs are, in nature, a selfish enterprise. Consider, they are about that person; they only—usually—sport that author’s opinion. The blog I read, however, had a separate element—a tendency, by nature, human. What I mean is that the author of the blog listed that the purpose of her blog was “to be seen, heard, noticed, and remembered” and that her goal, ultimately, was to get more “visitors to my blog”. In these two quotes, there seems to be an undertone of alienation or a discourse of struggle against isolation. The quotes suggest that one turns to a personal blog to become more connected to others, to dispel that isolation, which is, I think, central to the human condition—as the cliché puts it best, we all die alone. I said earlier that Personal blogs are selfish, but I had never considered one would write exclusively about their self to associate with others. Yet, that must be the conditions of the relatively new, blogging phenomenon. Since blogs are not contractual or based on reciprocating with someone in the moment, a level of intrigue becomes necessary to forge any connection.
Under the surface lies a quandary, why turn to the internet, to blogging, to be noticed? Constructing a copy of yourself and using that to network with others seems ridiculous when one could grab coffee with a physical person or whatnot. It seems easy for someone to be disingenuous when blogging. For example, the blog I read clustered the page with pictures of the outdoors, which might signify the author’s love of the wilderness, camping, etc. Since choosing background pictures is a deliberate choice, I wonder whether she identifies with being an outdoors person, she thinks she identifies that way, or she merely is constructing a façade to increase her viewership. In other words, it is interesting that people turn to personal blogs for attention, to combat alienation when, inherently, the line between what the author wants to convey to her readers and what actually is true about the author is skewed.
What this blog suggests is counterintuitive, that social, internet relationships are as ideal or fulfilling as their physical counterparts or that sharing one’s life through a personal blog is synonymous with face to face conversation. Perhaps, the volume of people, connections to be made, increases. The author of the blog mentions that she worked on her blog to “get more visitors”. Again, the potential connections to be made through a blog medium is infinitely greater than what is possible and proximal, however, to what depths do these connections satisfy social needs.
