Walls
I was thinking as I read about differences between internet expectation and reality that I probably have a different conception of the world of blogs than some. I have an impression that blogging can be a bit bad for the character, if it makes you more self-involved and grandiose, and for that reason you should try to be more separate from your online self. I may notice this particularly because I seem to have the opposite problem, where my writing tends to tap into an older, more insecure strain of character. Either way, I think the distinction between the writing self and the everyday self should be maintained, or at least recognized.
Update: Someone else once pointed out to me that the internet creates a false and somewhat frustrating sense of intimacy, because revelation is usually earned in real life, and there is more mutual exchange and influence, whereas the mechanisms of social relation are speeded up, and potentially more one-sided, online. I have made some great friends through the medium, but I remain wary of it.
Update ii: That is, you will not catch me frolicking in tents of blogdom, with daisies in my hair, saying "oh, the internet is just heaven!" anytime soon. In case you were expecting to discover me in such a pose.
Update iii: And I know you were. So I thought I'd disabuse you of this notion.
Update: Someone else once pointed out to me that the internet creates a false and somewhat frustrating sense of intimacy, because revelation is usually earned in real life, and there is more mutual exchange and influence, whereas the mechanisms of social relation are speeded up, and potentially more one-sided, online. I have made some great friends through the medium, but I remain wary of it.
Update ii: That is, you will not catch me frolicking in tents of blogdom, with daisies in my hair, saying "oh, the internet is just heaven!" anytime soon. In case you were expecting to discover me in such a pose.
Update iii: And I know you were. So I thought I'd disabuse you of this notion.
posted by fortuna at 10:30 AM
16 Comments:
I was expecting you to be the Slough of Despond, actually.
Um, actually this seems like an interesting counterpart to other sorts of blog triumphalism. Should we expect to see people talking about how if MSL doesn't watch itself the blogs are going to replace MSL, whose business model is basically outmoded anyway?
(L for 'life'. Although "'L' for love!" might also work.)
Until I feel the internet's wounds for myself, I remain a Doubting Fortuna.
Wariness is, I think, appropriate.
My online personality feels to me like my real self, with full range of references and modes of expression, I've up to now only felt like sharing with a few people. What I feel must be used in the great majority of social and business settings is a much more restricted set, and I often feel like I need to conceal the existence of the more reminiscent and speculative part of myself. To talk/write freely!
I don't know about my online personality. I think my real life one is pleasanter. I'm feeling a little wary about the whole thing myself. Maybe just sad that I missed last weekend.
I probably already share my "real" self with my friends, so got less benefit, in that sense. In some way, blogging may be more restrictive, because I'm expressing the past more than the present, somehow. My fiction is largely rooted in my family background and my hyper-sensitive high school self, and my blog persona is connected to that, so I feel I get perceived in a way that's probably a little false, or retrograde.
Although that bit of disconnect seems to heighten perception in a way—I think since I present more girly or femmy than I actually am, I'm more aware of the immense amounts of cultural *stuff* being projected on me as a result. Not always pleasant.
It's certainly been possible for people I've met on the internet to become real friends, though. I think the gateway or boundary between the two is just a little more fraught for me.
I will not, however, let you sink back into the real world unmet, text. Textville if necessary, that's now my motto.
A kind sentiment, Fortuna. I'll try to float a bit longer. Oh look! Water wings!
I think you're right that net selves and real selves are different. When I meet someone in reality, I always think and say "I like your work" and then expect nothing. They may be totally different; when they're similar to their net self I find that actually more confusing.
Maybe blogs aren't as literary as I think, but the idea that a person's public writing reflects their inner self seems nuts to me. Inner private characteristics definitely can throw totally different lights on a person.
On the other hand, extremely perceptive reading may pick up on those inner things without the writer intending it. Yes well, I've been pondering it all for the last 4 years, no conclusions of note, but grapping with the issues and implications can certainly help build one's character. ("So-and-so saw what you said on your blog about hippes, and she's not talking to you anymore" etc. And I love hippies!!)
One of the reasons I stopped blogging and now very seldom comment anywhere is just this fact. I found I became deeply suspicious of the person I found blogging in my pseudonym. I remember a discussion we had way back in the day about voice. Well the voice was false, it seemed.
I do find myself continuously intrugued by the online personalities I observe in various blogs, and still do develop wishes to meet the people behind the layers of veils.
I'm reminded of something Adam Smith wrote about Shaftesbury: while it's certainly possible to write from a false position, it's hard to sustain such a facade without showing some cracks. The online people whose writing I've really paid attention to, over time, haven't, by and large, proved so discontinuous with their real-life self-presentations.
It's interesting, some time ago when I was corresponding with some guy I hadn't met via email I was a bit alarmed by my self-presentation. I was talking about it with a friend and speculated it was a bit like trying on a dress you think you would never wear, just for the sense of possibility. She thought it was an attempt to integrate a repressed identity in Jungian fashion. I would guess both can be in operation.
Interesting; I'd never thought of blogs like that. My attitude's more like IDP's (surprise, surprise): I think of my online persona as being in some respects more like my own view of my self than the persona(e) I present to the world in real life.
I think a lot of this difference in attitude toward blogging probably stems from different perspectives on writing in general.
So what you're saying is that you're Goffman's bitch?
Maybe. Who's Goffman?
Goffman.
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