Blogocentric Formulations

The Great Blog-Off: Prompt 4

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Prompt: Respond to the following quotes:

“I believe the term blog means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume.”
- Michael Arrington

“The bottom line is that blogging is like sex. You can’t fake it. You can’t fake passion. You can’t fake wanting to engage with the public. If you do, it will ultimately be an unsatisfying experience for both the blogger and their readers.”
- Kevin Anderson

For me, these quotes embody two of the most essential elements of not just blogging, but of writing and even art in general: interaction (Arrington) and authenticity (Anderson).

Arrington could be referring to the fact that most blogs have functionality in place which allows readers to comment on a blogger’s posts. Whatever the platform, blogging is clearly intended to be an interactive experience, particularly since the default setting on most blogging platforms is almost always to allow comments; you have to manually disable the ability for people to comment in most cases.

But I think Arrington is actually getting at something a little broader in his comment, which is that blogs are inherently public. Unlike keeping a private journal, posting something online – regardless of access restrictions – implies that the material is intended for an audience of at least one other person besides the author. (Otherwise, why post it online at all when you can keep it securely on your hard drive?) And when you write for an audience other than yourself, you’re inviting interaction. Whether that’s between the author and his/her audience or different members of the author’s audience among themselves, an audience always has an opinion on content they’re presented with: like, dislike, interested, bored, etc.

Even if the author’s intent is not to engage in a conversation, that doesn’t mean his or her audience is content to sit back and merely read. People do go to blogs to both read AND write, whether or not the blogger solicits the interaction. Additionally, the conversation about a blog post is no longer relegated the comments section of the blog itself; blog posts are shared, favorited, retweeted, copied-and-pasted, and discussed in other forums. Television programs are even trying to draw live audiences back from the safety of their DVR-recorded programming by promoting live-tweeting opportunities to ask questions or interact with the cast of a show during its initial viewing. All of this is encouraging a culture where the content that’s posted online is meant to be discussed and disseminated, not merely read and discarded. There’s no question that blogging is not the passive pastime that keeping a diary or a private journal once was.

As far as the second quotation, I disagree with Anderson’s illustrative example (if he thinks sex can’t be faked, clearly he’s never been married. Oh yes, I went there ). All kidding aside, though, his point about having an honest, passionate experience is an important one. People may call it truth, honesty, earnestness... I prefer the overarching term “authenticity” to encapsulate the idea that the content one blogs about needs to connect with both the blogger and the audience. If it doesn’t, the experience won’t be a memorable one and I’d like to think that anyone who takes the time to create something has at least some hope of it being memorable or significant to an audience.

I know we’re talking about blogging here, but this is really a conversation about the larger medium of writing, and the even larger topic of art as a whole. The whole point of creating art is for an audience to interact with it and have an authentic experience. That’s not an easy thing to do.

It requires a lot of dedication and hard work.

It requires an understanding of your medium.

It requires an understanding of how an audience interacts with art.

If you’re insincere in your efforts, the end result is likely to have an inauthentic connection to your audience.

The bottom line is that if you want to keep what you write private, you probably shouldn’t post it on something called the World Wide Web. And if you are interested in posting something online, you shouldn’t just expect that there will be an audience for your work; you should embrace it. Don’t treat it as a medium where you write static words that are then abandoned; recognize blogging for the opportunity it is to meet and interact with new people. And while you’re at it, say something meaningful... because if you’re going to interact with someone, you might as well do it in an authentic way.