On Web Culture

Source: YouTube

Source: YouTube

Source: YouTube

Links: Wikipedia, Book Depository

Source: YouTube

Links: Wikipedia, Book Depository

Source: YouTube

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 by Isao Hashimoto.

Source: YouTube

Last week’s post was useful because I realised I was wrong. Sometimes you need to say something out loud to realise you actually don’t think that.

Last week I said I should be able to post in raw form and not be held accountable for the quality. My justification was that was the only way I was going publish more frequently. And that is just weak. No, I don’t think that. If you’re going to blog seriously online, then harden up. It is going to need to be thoughtful & polished otherwise it deserves any criticism it gets. And as for publishing more often, we’re not talking about a novel here – this is a blog. It shouldn’t be that hard to publish reasonably frequently.

I’m going overseas soon so it will be an interesting exercise to see if I can turn that into a reason to be updating more often.

A while ago now Stew said to me that the problem with blogging was that whatever you said, it was like it was your public statement, your official position now & forever. Stew & I had both been blogging for a while at that point & seen it grow in popularity. And it was true, the new environment was stifling, and not much fun. I also decided at the time that I, and Stew, were victims. It wasn’t fair!

I think my reaction then was because I just didn’t enjoy the scutiny. It made me have to sweat what I was writing and I wanted an escape route: “Oh, but it’s just a blog post!”. And today I don’t feel comfortable just banging out these sentences. I want it to be well-written. I’m aware of who is reading it, and also who might read it.

Probably just as long ago, when I suggested to my friend Joanna she start a blog, she said the internet probably wasn’t ready for controversial stuff she really would like say. That is certainly the case for me currently – I also blog behind pseudonyms & walled blog communities because there is stuff I just can’t say here. I do this because I feel the need to “self censor”. It might be that the content is only half thought out & needs a softer, friendlier audience. Or maybe it has such different content matter that the tone just isn’t suited to this particular blog. And sometimes I post elsewhere as part of getting it ready for posting here.

Strange, this world of blogging. I don’t like it very much. It doesn’t feel intimate and it also feels like work I’m not getting paid for. It feels easier to tweet something, because that does have an out. At least currently a tweet is like a remark, you do get away with more. And there are times where this blog would make more sense as a Tumblr website, where the content would be more video, and re-posts, and the sort of media heavy content sharing that Tumblr promotes.

But I don’t want to give up yet. I see two future paths. The easy option is to basically have a WordPress-powered Tumblr website. Or! Shout down the voices in my head, be brave and try to post what is on my head & heart to share. And the only way for the second option to work out is to publish in raw form. Anything too polished, too redacted will be too time-consuming and faced with that I don’t see my rate of publishing on this blog improving.

Do you know what happens when you blog in raw form? You get people pointing out your typos, pointing out how you contradict yourself with older posts, comments pointing out exceptions in ways that fail completely to usefully contribute to the conversation. It is awful. But maybe it is better than not blogging at all.