Blogging is a strange medium that has great potential for allowing misperceptions and miscommunication to run rampant. To put it bluntly, you may not really know me if you only read my blog. Like any other blogger, I pick and choose what I post in this space and my readers get a very skewed version of Rebecca Tredway because of my picking and choosing. Recently I’ve had numerous conversations with close friends about the oddness of blogging. Sometimes a blogger’s voice truly shines through his words, and at other times a blogger’s posts don’t reflect his personality at all. I’ve heard of bloggy crushes that have developed based on a perception that is far removed from reality, and I myself have quit reading blogs because my own perceptions created frustration and irritation with the particular blogger.
All in all, I think there needs to be a lot of grace issued in the blogging world. Grace to understand that messages recorded in print may not tell the full story, that comments listed may not truly reflect one’s heart, and that each item posted simply records a moment in time, that the blogger herself may change her mind on the same topic tomorrow.
Finally, these conversations with friends (in particular, one with my dear friend Sarah late last night) have pushed me to question, why blog? Here’s the best answer I’ve come up with…
I blog for three reasons. One, blogging is a fabulous creative outlet. I’m able to combine two passions — writing and photography — into one small space on the web. Sentences have a way of composing themselves in my head, and if I’m smart enough to record them quickly, I end up having great fun with words. I have loved to twist, turn, manipulate and create with the English language as long as I remember. Most everything I write here is factually true, but I admit I take a writer’s liberty with the telling of it. As a child I’d hear my mom relating a story on the phone and I’d think, Wait! She’s not telling it right!! The truth was that my mother was telling her own story, complete with the nuances important to her. That’s exactly what I do here. Okay, back to my three reasons for blogging. The second reason I blog is that The Prairie Box is my personal Soap Box — it’s my chance to speak my opinion freely on matters like breastfeeding, public schooling, child advocacy and politics. In the same manner, I can give personal opinions on movies, books and television programs. Lastly and most recently, blogging has become my kid’s scrapbook. I am far too perfectionistic to create decent scrapbooks by hand, but the blog allows me to post photos and memories of Livia’s baby years. (Many a time I’ve wanted to retitle the blog, “The Livia Project” since it’s mostly about her!)
Any thoughts on all this? Why do YOU blog?
4 Comments
Lindsey Aug 7, 2006 5:28 PM
I think I blog for the same reasons that you do, Rebecca. I love writing, and my blog is a great chronicle of my college life (it’s really a shame I didn’t have it freshmen year–THAT would have been interesting), and I get to blather on about stuff I like … or hate, for that matter. I like that it’s an open journal of sorts, in that people can read it if they want, but no one is being forced to listen to my thoughts. Blogging is therapy, and I’m not even paying for it.
I agree that blogging can give someone a skewed perception of the author, though I think that how I express myself in my writing is pretty much exactly how I talk in real life (anyone disagree?). The exception being that there are a lot of things, huge things, in my life that I refrain from writing about because they’re too personal.
Aubrey Aug 8, 2006 6:57 AM
Hey – Just wanted to let you know I’ve posted some photos of my own freezer paper stencil experience on my blog. THanks again for the idea!
Aubrey
andy Aug 8, 2006 8:01 AM
For me it’s also the artistry part. I like searching for the right shot, cropping to the right angles and finding the right words. There aren’t many realms of life that I’m artistic but I think blogging can be one of them.
Mike Wittmann Aug 9, 2006 4:45 PM
I blog as an outlet of sorts. I have so many opinions on so many things (thanks to my firstborn status) that I would likely go nuts if I didn’t express them somewhere. And, for the sake of my family and friends, my blog allows me to express, argue, debate, wonder, suggest, and opine without turning people into unsuspecting mental outburst recipients. My wife loves me very much, but if she had to listen to my political/religious/cultural opinions everyday we would have scarce time to discuss the things we really like to talk to each other about.
I also blog because it makes me feel kind of important when people from around the world read what I’ve had to say. Traffic counters like sitemeter let me stroke my ego when I see people anywhere from Iowa to Indonesia have somehow stumbled onto my blog and read at least a few words that I’ve penned (typed?) there.
“You’re so vain… I bet you think this blog is about you, don’t you? Don’t you?”
In essence, my blog is about me because it reveals my thoughts on some things. You are absolutely right that it can give a wrong impression of who I am in totality, but it does reveal at least part of who I am. The trick is to realize that it’s just a part, and that the other parts might not be like this part at all.
Mike
P.S. I read Keith Ghormley’s blog because I like how he thinks, and he takes good pictures. But, I don’t think that reading his blog somehow means that I know him or that he knows me.