Old School...

Rebecca's Pocket - Weblogs: A History and Perspective

Above is a link to a blog article by Rebecca Blood, written in the year 2000 - epochs ago in the world of cyberspace. As an "old school" blogger myself - and by old school, I mean someone who has been blogging since before 2000 and remembers the use of the term "weblog" - I find it fascinating that I can add a link by simply clicking a link that is titled "link". At the risk of sounding like my mother reminiscing about her good-old-days, I remember when you had to type in the actual HTML code by hand! Sometimes, progress is a good thing...other times, it opens the flood-gates to inferior creations.

As I sit here trying to think how I should express myself - and how much of myself I should express - I return to the same thought: Just because you know how to type does not mean you are a writer.

Once upon a time, blogging was the territory of those who dedicated themselves to the combined crafts of writing and web-building. Both crafts took time and patience; both crafts could oscillatate between exciting and maddeningly boring; and both crafts instilled in their Creator a duel sense of Godliness and humility.

On the one hand, success in early blogging resulted in a sense of accomplishment: I created this! I researched it, wrote it, edited it, and published it - and people are actually interested in reading it! Yay, me!!! On the other hand, this accomplishment was accompanied by the knowledge of the time, effort, aggravation, and love that went into the creative process; resulting in the aforementioned sense of humility. Today, technical progressions like the amazing little "link" button and the profitability of offering blogging platforms has resulted in the ubiquity of what was once unique and, quite often, offerings of lower quality.

In reading - and then re-reading - Blood's article, I am amazed at the progressiveness of thought. Like a Market Forecaster, she predicted the changes that would come with the exponential growth of blogging based upon what she could currently see.

The first important point that Blood makes is the interactive nature of blogging. Media, which by its very nature is not interactive, becomes a participatory event. Instead of just reading the news as it is presented, early bloggers were able to package the news that they had read - from many different sources - and condensed it for their readers. It was as if the blogger was a human version of USA Today or The Reader's Digest, capable of offering opinion - and responses others opinions - along with the clearinghouse services that they offered. Suddenly, media was not just a medium of delivery; but a medium of interaction between those with common interests.

The second important point Blood makes is how blogging services (and Blogger in particular) brought change to the very essance of what blogging is. Due to a change in computer-interfacing, adding links to blogs was no longer necessary to blog. Say whaaaaat? That's like going to Dunkin' Donuts and ordering a "coffee, regular; hold the cream and sugar". This change - unpalatable to most weblog purists - opened the floodgates to new bloggers, and basically invited anyone with an Internet connection to join the blogosphere. According to Blood - and I am inclined to agree with her - this change was the tipping point between blogs as news-filters and blogs as public, free-form journals. This point segues into Blood's next argument: What is the definition of a blog?

As a former Communications professional (B.A. - RI College, 1997) and a current student of Biological Sciences, I am well aware of both the fluidness of language and the importance of preseving the meaning of words. Science avoids issues with the latter by insisting on the use of Latin, a dead language, but live languages are ever changing - just think of the words "gay" or "fag" which once meant "frivolous" and "worn out", respectively. Just as these definitions have changed, so has the definition of a blog. So what is the true definition of the word?

Blood is willing to concede that the journal-style postings have - by might or right - taken over as the accepted definition of the word "blog", but then what do we call the traditional weblog, which is still in common, if not as popular, existance? Unlike the original meaning of the word "gay", "blog" does not have any commonly used synonyms to allow one to distinguish between the two styles laying claim to the word.

Another interesting point made by Blood was one of self-discovery. Most if not all people like to think they know themselves. With the exception of the confusing, hormone-laden teenaged years, we feel a certain confidence in who we are and in what we believe. As children, we know what we want to be when we grow up; even if, as adults, we veer far from that path, we still remember the dreams we held as children, so firmly held were those beliefs. As adults we don't have to wonder what tomorrow will bring; we simply assume our day will, for the most part, steer the course we have set for it. Blogging can turn those feelings of unspoken confidence upside-down.

Blogging, to be perfectly honest, is a rather self-centered activity. People who blog are generally not writing about the local news from a neutral viewpoint. Rather, they are writing about what interests them and they are writing from their (sometimes very) personal viewpoint.

Many bloggers blissfully open mouths full of ignorance and allow their uneducated voices to flow onto the page without a passing thought to fact-checking. These are not the bloggers who will experience self-discovery, but merely the modern version of the age-old gossip columnist. However, as Blood points out by citing her personal growth experience, those who research their topics may discover their world view and personal interests/obsessions are not what they thought - perhaps because they never examined it so closely, perhaps because the research they have done has opened their eyes to different points of view, and tipped their world on its axis.

Blood's closing point is truer today than when she originally authored the article disected here: "We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions". Blogs have the power to transform the media into an audience-participation show, and media consumers into media creators; but we need to know when to say STOP! While in school, one of the first things writers are taught to do is not to write, but to listen; to observe; to read the written words of others; and then to react to it by putting it all down on paper - and then to edit what was written so that it has appeal to those outside of yourself and your surrounding circle. As fascinating as your Grandma finds your blog, I can promise that the works of Shakespeare have infinately more staying power.