Having had a bad blogging experience last week, which really upset me, it made me think about why I blog, why I expose myself to potential harm, and what I get out of it.
You're reading this, so I guess I don't need to tell you that blogging is curiously addictive. But in the few months that I've done this, pretty much on a daily basis, I've seen bloggers come and go, but many more stay and flourish. And it has been really rewarding to grow a small, friendly network of fellow bloggers around my blog, and, just as rewarding to follow their blogs, which kinda leads on to making friends with their friends too.
But, then suddenly a blog disappears. And it reminds me what a fragile, strange space this is. Blogging is liberating, but also full of all the crap and jostling for position that is everywhere else in life. It is at once inclusive, exclusive, fun, bitchy, bullying, supportive; it is creative, tedious, subversive and democratic too. All is not as it seems: we are not ourselves here, not entirely, and we refract our identities through the prism of our blog posts. Which can make for fragile friendships where meaning can very easily be misconstrued and feelings trampled.
So, for what it is worth, here is my personal blog manifesto:
1. I blog because blogging has become an integral part of me
2. I blog because I feel I have something to say, and in saying it (from the mundane to the slightly less mundane) I hope to explore who I am
3. Blogging is not a one-way act or process: I blog to share and to make connections, however tenuous, and feel there is worth in that
4. I blog because I find real delight here
5. Blogging helps me to locate myself, to sort ideas, to think things through
6. Blogging is a creative rather than a political act, although perhaps there's politics in that after all
7. Blogging is about establishing a conversation rather than making a statement: I don't expect response to my blogs, but admit that responses are an important part of why I blog
8. I am a banterer: blogging is fun
9. I do not blog to make myself 'fair game'. Am I naive to expect some level of respect from those who respond to my blog? Perhaps I am. But, I'm real, not virtual: crappy comments hurt.
And that is why I blog, albeit a tad more cautiously this week than last.
Well trolly's got my vote and you've also got my vote for the campaign song!
http://www.febland.net/
20/09/06 @ 14:27