Friday, 6 February 2004
The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Bloggers
I hate blogs.
I swore I'd never start one. I don't like the cliquish attitude, the incestuous cross-linking within the "community," the chatter of a million monkeys at a million typewriters creating transcripts of backbiting and gossip. The self-conscious exhibitionism of all-too-personal details by navel-gazers whose self-worth is defined by their audience's reaction to the "audacity" of their writing.
I could pause to cite several blogs that are good counterexamples. I'm even friends with some of their authors. But taken together they still make up a pretty damn small needle, and the haystack remains all-encompassing chaff.
I hate blogs.
Friends, and many of them, have often asked me when I'd start a blog. Almost invariably, the request comes from people who don't keep a blog themselves. Fair enough: I work with the Web, I should be on top of these kinds of trends. Maybe even be at the forefront of them.
Witness: I wrote my first HTML in 1994. Had it online in mid-1995. The first computer I owned was in 1981. I've been a self-proclaimed geek since high school (and ostracized for it).
Ergo, an ideal blogger. I should've been there from the get-go.
Counterpoint: I resisted getting a mobile phone until autumn of 2002. Wasn't connected via high-speed (ADSL) at home until November 2003. Didn't send my first instant message until December of the same year (unrelated reason).
I hate blogs.
But.
I live across the Atlantic from my family and many people who I've long called friends. For three and a half years. I am always woefully behind in my email correspondence. It's been two years that my Web site has consisted of nothing more than "no worries, back soon" and my two-year-old CV.
I keep a personal journal. Kept - it's been a year since I wrote more than an entry or two per month. I want to write so many things, all of them waiting to be written during that small window of time that I never have. Most never get written, and some that do end up reading like meeting minutes instead of personal feelings.
Stone, meet a couple of birds.
So I'm sticking my toe in the water, trying my hand, coming in out of the cold. Maybe I'll crash and burn, but more likely I'll simply fizzle out. Maybe I'll censor myself too much - or then again, regret revealing something.
In any case, this could be an interesting ride. Hopefully for you and for me.
I still hate blogs, though.