What's the harm in a blog?

Blogs are the old meme. Let's face it: just about everyone has had a blog at some point. Even hunchback, grumbling, retired toll booth officers feel the need to project the way they feel on the world. They've got something to say. Don't we all?

It's hard filtering out the crap blogs from the ones worth reading. What really makes a blog worth reading, anyways? I've heard lots of people say that blogs are boring. Who wants to hear about someone elses daily life? I suppose if you go boring places, have boring friends, and are a boring conversationalist, this is true. So how is it that there are so many popular blogs online? What sets them apart?

A lot of the more popular blogs aren't really what I consider blogs, at all. By definition, Gizmodo is a blog - they even won a bloggie, an award given out to noteworthy blogs - but I view it more of a news site. I think of blogs as being more personal than that. They deal with a persons every day life.

In my mind, the phenomenon of blog opposes one of the basic truths I've always held about human behaviour. Next time you're in a conversation with someone you're reasonably close with, someone you can talk with quite a bit about personal things, count how many times you say the words "I" and "me". Pay attention to how much you talk about yourself. When your conversational partner says something about himself or a situation someone else is in, you try to compare it to some part of yourself or your experiences, and you comment based on that. The average person is listening, but they aren't just listening to the words being said, they are listening for a pause in the conversation. They're just waiting for their turn to speak. The average conversation is a casual dual of monologues. It's not that either person is more self centered than average, it's not even that they don't care what the other person is saying; it's just human nature to be more interested in yourself than someone else.

So what's up with the interest in blogs? The act of writing a blog, that I can understand. It soothes our inner ego. Despite how many people may or may not be reading, we feel like we've said something, and it's out there. It's our personal space. We can say what we want, and no one can do anything about it. It's a place to vent without repercussion (not true, but that's how many view it). It feeds our "look at me! look at me!" urges. It can give a misguided feeling of power. In a conversation, someone can interrupt you. On a blog, you just get it all out. You tell your friends, your family, even complete strangers your URL with a feeling of pride. The average Joe Blow blog has very few readers, usually just the author and maybe a few friends and family, but the number of readers doesn't matter to the author. What matters is the feeling of being heard, whether it be by 3 or 300 readers. You've got their attention, you're holding a conversation, but it's all one sided so you don't have to give them that pause so they can insert their two cents. Commenting functionality started appearing on blogs, because although authors liked having that moment of venting their internal monologues without the momentary respites, they still had the egotistical need of knowing that people took time to consider their words, even if the readers comment might be negative.

That explains the motivation of the author, but what of the readers? If it's a natural compulsion to speak rather than listen, why does one person read another person's thoughts? Newspapers, magazines - those are easily explained. It's a different class of writing. When you pick up a newspaper, you expect to learn something, be it of world events or what that crazy Marmaduke does next. Why read about what books Chloe is reading, or how difficult Jacob's mid-terms are? What makes a blog worth sacrificing your side of the conversation?

The question I've posed about blogs reminds me of a DVD I bought on the clearance rack at Target, Being John Malcovich. If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend picking it up. It was never very popular in theatres, despite the fact that it's got a few big names in it. If you hate it, you've only wasted $9.99. It poses an interesting outlook on human behaviour, though. The person that is satisfied with who they are is very rare indeed. People will always want to know what it's like on the other side of the fence. What would it be like if I were <insert name here>? Is there life better than mine? What would it be like to switch lives with that person for a day? It doesn't even just apply to celebrities. Have you ever felt that way about the popular kid at school, or how about your next door neighboor? There's also the Jerry Springer complex. We all hate the show, but we've all watched it at some point. Maybe we even watched it more than once. We pointed and laughed at all of the freaks on the show, smug in our beliefs that it could never be us, we're so much better than them with our SUV's, 2.5 children, golden retriever, and our white picket fence. Sure, we have problems, but at least our children aren't pre-op transvestite prostitutes with stuffed animal fetishes. Maybe we need the constant reassurance that someone else has more problems than we do - or maybe we just want to know that someone else faces the same challenges we do.

Sure, there's the rare blog that can talk about something as mundane as baby vomit, but say it all in a way that makes even the most jaded of us laugh. That kind of writing talent from a personal blog is rare, indeed. There's also the occassional blog that we read not only for humor, but because we feel like we might actually have something to learn from this person.

I'm not naive enough to think that people read my blog because I'm a good writer. I try, but I know I have a long way to go. There's a few reasons my blog is as popular as it is. It doubtless has little to do with the fact that I'm a female in the technical industry. Fellas, it's not as rare as you think. Most fat girls are smart. How else are we going to land husbands? Just kidding. :) But seriously, breasts with a brain (however abused) are definitely part of the appeal. I know a lot of it also has to do with the controversy that seems to follow me wherever I go. I used to invite it; drama was fun. It kept me from getting bored. If I didn't have something to stress about, life just didn't feel right. Now I've calmed down a lot, no doubt having something to do with Mike, but the talk continues, so I keep racking up hits. I'm not complaining. Being trolled gives me something to laugh about, and it keeps me on my toes. I also seem to be bringing in a lot of weird hits from search engines. "gloryhole movies"? None of that here, ya'll, move along. I wonder though - do any of the people searching for such strange and obscene things see that this site isn't quite what they were looking for, but continue reading? Who knows.

Regardless of hits, I'll always blog. The way I look at it, $100/month for a server is cheaper than $100/hour therapy. Most people have at least one person they dump their shit on, be it a good friend or a therapist. I have a lot of friends now, but I'm not comfortable doing that kind of thing. I don't even do that with people that I'm extremely close to, like Mike and Michelle. I vent a little occassionally, but for the most part, I keep personal things to myself - until I get a chance to put it in my blog. It's good therapy. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

And if I happen to get a small fan club along the way, well, that's not my fault, now is it?