It's happening all over the shop: Simon Garfield in today's Observer, on how weblogs are online diaries. Remember when I was on the radio, last summer?
It's the same: here's what I think happens. You (one) don't know from weblogs. Then you read about a famous one, look into it, it's a new phenomenon, in some way, so what do you do? You compare it, as much as you can, to something that already exists - voila. "It's a diary on the interwebnetdoodar." See, no hassle.
Old converstion, but let's cover the ground again. I think there are different kinds of weblogs. To me, weblogs are as much about linking and interconnectivity, as they are about writing. Like, I use mine as a writing site, sure - that's why I got into it, an audience, almost - but it's not a diary. A diary is where I share my innermost secrets, and why would I do that on the internet? I'd be mad? And, I also use mine as a link repository: stuff I found, stuff I want to remember. I use the search facility in blogger like my personal "outboard brain" (thanks, Cory, your words).
But I cheat. If I'm at a dinner party/at my parents house and the subject comes up, I do the same.
- What's a weblog, Sasha?
- Oh, it's a kind of online diary.
See, it's shorthand. It's cheating. It's easier than telling people about iterative conversations, meme buggery, connectivity, online commentary, a "community of writers" (which I think about my more writing-stylee fellow bloggers), because then I'll have to explain everything like I just got off the boat from the future or a foreign country, and I can't be arsed, frankly.
I feel like I'm part of some kind of community - and I use that word advisedly - online. And when I read what people write about us, I get frustrated. Like when I watch TV programmes about Jewish people and think "you've got it so wrong. In fact, you've not got it at all."
So Boing Boing didn't post "the following request" an advert for a girlfriend because his parents were coming to visit. It posted a link to a Craigslist ad that people were talking about that day/moment because... they were. But it's no more than a small ad: the difference is, in twenty seconds, people all over the world can be reading it.
A weblog is not a diary. Although it may be to some people. A weblog is not a homepage. Although it might be to some people. A weblog is (in the inimitable words of Anna Friel in the Three advert) whatever you want it to be. And I know I should feel flattered that print media is all over us now, but it feels strange. I've been doing this for nearly two and a half years - and a bunch of people have been doing it for way longer. I've thought about all the arguments and conversations, I worked out what I will and won't write. I know where the line is, and I have views about what others post. My thoughts have a... depth to them, I guess is what I'm saying (and I've been doing a lot of guessing recently). So, while I know this is how newspapers work - there's a hook - I hate it when you see through something straight to the hook, and there's no meat on the bone. Is what I'm saying. I think. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind because I'm a work in progress, and on the internet, nothing's ever finished-
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