I recently opened up a live journal account, which was mainly created to be able to read the stories of two people I know (on their request, I may add). Now, not having entered much somehow makes me feel... guilty. Well - what exactly do I do with that thing? What do the bloggers amongst you write in their journals? And, even more interesting, what don't you put in them? Do you advertise them in some way? Do your mothers read them? What makes you blog? What's your motivation to make your private life -partly- public, and how much do you relly on the internet's anonimity? Another thing I noticed: the "influence" of bloggers and blogging being treated as some kind of journalism, o at least representative for the public opinion. Garner has raised the issue a few times (on the old board). I recently noticed again, that over here, it's not an issue at all. Not yet. That may have to do with the somewhat different approach towards journalism in the German speaking/ English speaking world (I'll explain that later). It may also have to do with the fact that blogging as such seems to be not as "in" as it seems to be in the English speaking countries... (Well, English is, moreso than in the real world, the lingua franca of the internet...)
I guess there's two main types of web log; the diary type thing that says, 'I'm feeling like shit today, wish my teacher would die....' '....Today my teacher died, feeling much better and all is right with the world!' And the other type that concentrates on a particular subject, like going to the Movies for instance... 'In my opinion the latest journey into the magical world of Harry Potter is unadulterated Hogswash!' But you could write all sort on there I suppose, treat it like your own little website with your own fiction, facts about a hobby you have, life in the Outer Hebrides, the Canadian Secret Service.... I think they become interesting and more like jounalism when people start to read them, when they become interesting to a large group of people - usually because of their perceived intellectual merits.
I started an lj when I left for Japan, intending on posting stories and photos from my stay there... ...which I didn't do because I was too busy sightseeing. I mostly use my account now in order to catch up with people. I am on another board as well and most people there live in America, so I can't see them in AIM. By reading their blogs, it's like we went out for a coffee and swap news.
The thing is, although I used to be the diary writing type, making things out of my own life public still seems a little strange to me... although the board should have kind of gotten me used to that by now. If I browse the archives there for my own posts of the last 3 years, I find a lot of memories and thoughts and whatnot. But assuming that all this justifies a page of its own still feels... strange. That's why I was curious on other peoples approach to the world of blogs.
Mine is a diary type of thing simply because i know so many people in so many different parts of the world that having a way of keeping them up to date is excillent. You don't need to write about you life so much as things of interest that grabbed you that day or something. Lets say you crashed your car. You could write something more along the lines of car crashes in general. Instead of focusing only on your life. Im not entirely sure how this would work but any form of creative writing could be a fun way of doing it...
I've got a great friend who I keep up with almost exclusively by means of his livejournal these days, I'm sorry to say. In his case, he is an excellent writer, and his entries range from opinion pieces to stories and poetry to simple accounts of what's gone on in his day or in his head. Because he's such a good writer, it's always worth reading. Otherwise, I doubt I'd bother, to be honest - I'd just try to keep up with him on AIM or via email instead.
