Why Blog?
The "in" debate this month within the blogging community is the point of blogging. The argument seems to be that if you're not actively picking away at the outer limits of what constitutes the concept of "the blog", you may as well give up now. Ah well, shucks folks, it's been nice knowin' y'all...
Seriously though, I wonder if perhaps everyone's not unconsciously fabricating a large part of the concept of blogging. The way I see it, you can view blogging in two ways: either it's a method by which we can transmit information, or it's a distinct activity which has an inherent specialness about it. I have to choose the former. The sense of community which arises from the (sad?) fact that most people who read blogs already have one or plan to make one might suggest that there is some common goal we're all working towards. Which is clearly untrue. Prospective bloggers are not, in my opinion, generally inspired to make blogs by the innovations of those they read so much as the technology being used. Blogger merely provides us with a technology that makes personalised web content easier and more exciting than before; the mission statement must come from within ourselves. The idea that there should be some communal mission statement is preposterous - the same standards were hardly applied when personal web pages started to proliferate towards the beginning of the last decade.
Why do I blog? Because I'm wordy and I need to let it out somewhere, but I don't have the time to write proper articles or have a regularly updated web page. You read this, I assume, because you're interested in what I have to say, and not because you're hoping for some glimpse of the future of the internet. If you are looking for the latter, then you may as well give up now, 'cuz this blog certainly ain't on the cutting edge; but for all those suffering from metablogging-related identity crises, I'll start a new debate: why the hell does it have to be?
