I think that's part of the very reason I blog. I found myself asking this the other day when someone made some comments on my blog about it being a self-important place. Yeah, it's self-important, it's a blog, silly! tl-pharmacy.com
But, I think you're right, so many people act as link-filters, so many people act as news-makers, and for a while I think I've wanted to be those people, the people with tons of hits and a lot of cash on the side from their tipjar. But in the end, I still want to write about baseball and random bits about the Mac and my musical life, and there seems to be no room for that on Instapundit or Andrew Sullivan and the rest.
I've been doing some pruning lately. I try to keep my roll to only those sites I visit each and every day.
I don't post for an audience, I post for myself. I've never kept a journal or any kind of chronicles of how I feel, what I'm doing, and where I'm going, until now. It really helps me make sense of some of my day to day thoughts and ramblings, and quite frankly I like it.
There, there.
Stop by 4m some time, I'll buy you a humongous cup of virtual java.
Courtney...
Kill your blog now...
Believe me... I've been wanting mine to die for so long...
And now... all I do is whine about lameness...
Get out while you still can!!!
I definitely support blogging for your own reasons. Whatever they may be. Anyone who claims to have a handle on the defining characteristics of a "good" blog without some qualifier (like a "good journalistic-political blog" or "a good meta-filter blog") is a ... um, well, insert some rude noun here.
And yeah, my little personal website went through an identity crisis recently, too. Still is, sort of. It's all good. :)
i probably have one of those blogs you've talked about... or, i can at least see how somebody would think so. but, like everybody, i like to think that i'm different. i try to include things you won't see every day. i try to make people look at things differently. i try to make even the most mundane things mildly entertaining. am i looking for comments? yes... but i don't want people to comment unless they've actually got something to say, yanno?
i may not be popular, but i'm saying the things i want to say... and that's what i think blogging is all about.
Very thought provoking. I respect what you are saying and the fact that you are staying true to your original blogging intentions.
That being said, the only reason that I have a weblog is because I want to share something. If I wanted to truly write for myself I would just keep a personal journal either on my computer or in actual long-hand. The very action of me putting it on the net and making it accessible implies that I want an audience to read. I have a comment system like you do here because I care what people think about what I have written and I'm looking for a certain kind of interaction.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that a weblog to me is a compromise between self-writing and writing for an audience.
Entries like these are what inspired me to blog...well done.
I used to blog to vent. To rant. I linked news stories that pissed me off. I opined about everything. I tried to mitigate that with what I labeled the GCPotD - the Gratuitous Cute Picture of the Day. Even that was evil, though, since I was a bandwidth pirate (before I knew what that meant) and linked directly to other people's pictures.
Phase II had me in a more reflective state. I wrote about what I felt, not in reaction to news stories. Those were the halcyon days, I think.
I'm currently in v3.0, which was pretty much forced on me. Prior to the onset of this stage, my blog was semi-private. Only people I had specifically told about it ever went there (among people I knew in "real life"). The rest of my audience was bloggers who had found me through various means (Killoggs, other blogs). All that changed when Barb's health took a turn for the worse. A well-meaning friend told pretty much everyone whom I've ever met about my site. Suddenly, I was uncomfortable writing about many subjects because my "intimate circle" had been expanded to unmanageable proportions.
Now, I basically use it as a means to communicate with all these people without having to write individual emails. The lazy man's method of communication, if you will. If friends or family want to know what's going on in my life, they hit my site. It has the boring, mundane details of a life that couldn't be more boring and mundane. The blog is vanilla.
I still put up the infrequent non-PC (or just non-everyone-I-know-needing-to-hear-it) post on Killoggs, but my blog, such as it was, has forever been committed to "tameness".
I'm okay with that, most of the time, but I do miss the days when I could write some amusing (theoretically) post about explosive diahhrea without worrying about my mother-in-law reading it.
all good points. my rundown of responses (detailed responses sent via email to those who have commented):
Good ramble. You've summed it up nicely!
"Whine about lameness" made me laugh. It made me think, what is blogging if not saying, "Hey world, let me ever-so-generously retell the administrivia of my life because it's oh-so- fascinating and perhaps you'll learn something...". No offense to anyone because I'm including myself in this, but it IS self-indulgent, isn't it? Why isn't keeping thoughts, activities and desires in a private journal satisfying enough? Why is it so important that EVERYONE validate us?
i've been going through the same thing lately. when I want to get serious no one knows how to react they'd rather hear of parties or lame moments or stuff like that but let me tell of my heart breaking or life being too much at times and everyday crap and people get real silent real quick. which is why I started a whole different blog just for pure writing and maybe someday I'll make it public but for now it's nice to feel no pressure but just to write :)
damn girl sorry to write a book in here :)
Yup. I'm with ya. I've said it myself a couple of times in my own blog...it's MY blog. I write for me, not for hits, popularity or fame and fortune.
I've been going through a blog identity crisis for months. I think work and the lack of time to write the long posts I want to write - so they just linger in my mind. Maybe tomorrow I'll get a few of them out. I have some thoughts I want to share.
I started to blog because it was easier then sending out the "hey! Did you see this link?" e-mails all the time. Plus it's an easy way to bookmark things for myself so I can find them again later.