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A blogger’s thoughts may stem from a news article they recently read. In this case they usually link you to the article and state their opinions, or point out different aspects of it. Their comments are kind of a one-way discussion leading you down their train of thoughts. You can usually reply to what the author says, but the time delay in responses may result in the author’s lack of interest to questions posed. Walt Crawford threw an interesting concept my way in his article, Announcing Cubed: Media about Media about Media. Blogs are just another form of media coverage. Our media affects how we think to a great extent. It is always rating other forms of media, and many blogs are no exception (Crawford). Is this a reflection of how our thinking has been “cubed” by the media? Perhaps not, because the individual views of the author shine through. These views are a reflection of their culture and personal experiences.
I looked at Randal Van der Wonging’s blog for this research project. His blog caught my interest because he was a Canadian living in Hong Kong. He often has news articles featured on his blog that he shines a humorous light on. The article may just be an introduction to something funny he has to say, or his thoughts may have started there and wandered an interesting path forming some profound idea on the topic. Often we see Randal’s thoughts on a subject as he shines an outsider’s view on the culture of Hong Kong.
In the article, Home on the Net, John Seabrook suggests that the addition of culture to the web is the greatest feature of personal blogs. I can see the validity of this. What does society gain from culture on the web? Perhaps it is the ability to broaden their worldview without having to do the traveling. Randal often records his clashes with his new society. He is able to vent frustrations, and share those moments that you just have to tell a friend about, such as his new experiences with typhoons. He is able to connect with things he is familiar with, staying in tune with the familiar Canadian culture. In this way, his blog may even be good for his emotional health.
Another use of personal blogs can be to keep in touch with family and friends. Instead of writing each an e-mail, you can keep them all posted about happenings in your life by keeping what is like a journal. In return, each of them can keep their own blog to keep you posted on their life. However, this makes for impersonal relations, as there really are no interactions. The other person is just reading your journal, a one-way conversation. Observing Randal’s blog, I learned a lot about him, the culture of Hong Kong, and the blogging phenomena. All the while, Randal didn’t learn from or about me because I never gave him any feedback. I have found that feedback from others is the best way to learn about yourself.
To become an interacting community, a blog must be written, read, responded to, and have the responses responded to. The interlinking of blogs form communities that can help us work on social skills needed to be part of real communities. With these interactions relationships that people seek for are developed. These communities may even provide for some emotional needs. However, developed relationships in real life can be so much more rewarding. Not only are emotional needs taken care of in real life, but also physical. Virtual communities are abstract. They have the framework of a community, but they are not complete. Blogging communities seem artificial, so I don’t think I would get too involved. It is the real world that counts -things that you can touch. As children, we may have believed in unicorns. We perceived this to be true, but in light of new information our perceptions change. I don’t think that blogs as virtual communities could ever replace real life. The quests of the mind should never leave the body neglected. Our body cannot be shut off, and our mind is not separate from our body.
We may use blogs to escape the pressures of real life. Let’s face it, our personalities reflect the pressures on us at any given moment. True identities shine through when we are not pressured. Online, real life pressures do not effect people, and they can choose what aspects they will reveal to others. This can be negative in that people are not revealing their complete selves. Some people may even lie completely, creating a new person. In real life, you have a better chance of seeing through fluxes of personality and protecting yourself from these misrepresentations of identity.
Randal found out the hard way that there are people out there using this medium for personal gain. Look at the Kaycee Nicole hoax. Randal tells his side of the story on a link from his blog: http://www.vanderwoning.com/mess.shtml/blog.html . Randal met Debbie in a virtual community and became her friend. She took on the alias of Kaycee, pretending that she had cancer. Apparently, this was her way of dealing with the fact that several people close to her struggled with cancer. Randal shared in her “struggle” for over a year. He set up a blog for her and publicized her struggles. Debbie/Kaycee received a lot of attention, which may have been the whole goal. Randal put a great amount of energy into helping her, but it was all in vain. The character he knew died. Since “Kaycee’s” blog had a large following (people were even sending gifts), eventually someone uncovered some inconsistent information and checked more into the story. Kaycee was found to be a character whose life was a compilement of the real life events of three different people. Randal was shocked. He now had to deal with the loss of someone who was real in his mind, along with the betrayal of another human being, the guilt and shame of publicizing a hoax for the perpetrator, and the anger of the public. He was very criticized for it by the blogging community. He was so emotionally disturbed that he had trouble eating and sleeping for almost two weeks. He decided to post a conclusion to the event in hopes of finding some type of closure, so he could continue on with real life. It took twenty-one hours to compile enough factual information backed by records to sum up the story to show his lack of guilt in the hoax. He was a large player in it, but was only a tool used unsuspectingly.
A benefit of this was the medium’s ability to allow Randal to post his final conclusion on the incident. In real life rumors are untamable and it is pointless trying to curb them. Online, Randal was able to put in his final word. Anyone interested can see his side of the story with out having to confront him. He can leave all the people who won’t get over it behind him by ignoring them. He has moved on with life developing good relationships with his real friends. He did not have to physically move all his belongings and leave his friends behind to get away from the negative fallout of this relationship blowing up in his face. Surprisingly, Randal is not letting this keep him from opening up to people. He will not speak to Debbie, but has apologized to the public that was conned with him.
For blogs to really serve a function to society, the good aspects of their use must be reflected in society. Perhaps bloggers learn to think more about things, and develop their ideas making them a better writer. These are real life skills. They may also discover how to make and keep relationships. It may help friends keep in touch. These are real life relationships. Blogs can expose us to other cultures. All these good aspects may be just high hopes though. Unfortunately, the positive effects can be undermined by people’s selfishness. People will abuse this medium for personal gain. Some will use alternate personas. We must remember that blogs can never be an escape from real life. The virtual communities formed are only abstract copies of real communities.