are people who keep blogs extremely self-absorbed?

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I must say, I'm really amazed at the amount of personal detail revealed in may blogs. Are these people exhibitionists? Have they no sense of privacy? Or do they just find themselves incredibly interesting?

― shookout (shookout), Thursday, 24 February 2005 18:54 (twenty years ago)

THEY ARE INCREDIBLY INTERESTING

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 18:57 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I've thought about this having started to read a few people's blogs quite recently. You do tend to wonder a) don't they have friends they can tell this stuff to? and b) don't they have friends/colleagues/family they'd not want to ever read this stuff?

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Thursday, 24 February 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

if you do not find them so interesting, why are you reading them?

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:00 (twenty years ago)

I didn't say that I didn't find them interesting. I just wonder whether the level of personal detail - talking about the shag they had the other night - in some blogs is really appropriate for the "public domain."

Didn't someone get the sack for slagging off his employers in his blog? I seem to recall that was a story in the news fairly recently.

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

I think a lot of exhibitionistic bloggers = rather shy in real life.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

Momus' blog is interesting, but he tends to write about the world at large rather than mundane personal shit.

― The Argunaut (sexyDancer), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)

Didn't someone get the sack for slagging off his employers in his blog? I seem to recall that was a story in the news fairly recently.

There have actually been several instances of this in the last few years.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

Jordan is OTM.

― Ben Mott (Ben Mott), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

Jordan is OTM.

Except for Momus. I forgot about Momus.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:17 (twenty years ago)

T/S: blathering endlessly about personal stuff on a blog vs. blathering about personal stuff on livejournal

― Dude, are you a 15 year old asian chick? (jingleberries), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)

Aren't LiveJournals blogs, too? It's weird how most people I know who have LiveJournals never use the word blog. I mean, I guess, way back when, blog = weblog = a log of interesting links from around the web -- but now doesn't it just a mean a personal site with periodically updated entries?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, My friend's boyfriend got sacked from Teach for America 2 years ago for slagging off the entire Baton Rouge school system, esp "black people", and if you google his name he shows up in tons of articles from The Washington Post to WorkIndex paper, and he's immensly proud of this fact, and he made no secret of his blog. I would have been mortified. Actually, I never would have done it in the first place esp. since Teach for America can let you go for any reason and you can't protest it like that manager of Waterstone's in Edinburgh did recently.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:23 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, livejournals are blogs even if they have more teen goth angst stigma attached to them.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 24 February 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

I think the answer's yes - but people are fascinating, so why not to themselves too?

― moley (moley), Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:54 (twenty years ago)

i am incredibly self-absorbed and do not have a blog

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

I'm probably very self-absorbed, but enough people read my blog for it to be worth continuing

(maybe about 100, at a very rough guess. As blogs go, that's pretty small.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

No-one's ever read my blog! I have the stats to prove it.

― moley (moley), Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

i have to admit i find blogs to be weird and not a little distasteful, though i'm not i'd like to hear myself explain why. i have no problem being totally fascinated by my own problems (or at least, i've accepted for the moment that this is how i am), but i'm very sensitive to the fact that others may not be as interested. the idea of starting a blog has never even remotely been compelling for me.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 24 February 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

i mean blogs about music, i don't get any jitters reading those. blogs about everything under the sun, i guess i just don't see the point.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 24 February 2005 21:00 (twenty years ago)

do you read any blogs? what blogs do you read?

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

i guess i look at some of the music blogs sometimes, like tim whatshisname and sasha frere-jones. i don't read any blogs regularly. usually just when i'm pointed to an interesting entry or two.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 24 February 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

i have a blog but i try to keep the self-absorption to a minimum.

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:53 (twenty years ago)

i am self-absorbed though.

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:54 (twenty years ago)

ts: self-absorbed blogs vs. elf-absorbed blogs

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:55 (twenty years ago)

i tell all but in mysterious convoluted code

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:57 (twenty years ago)

I am generally pretty open about my life and my thoughts about stuff on my blog and in the real world, but it has nothing to do with being self-absorbed and a lot to do with just not being a particularly private person.

― kate/papa november (papa november), Thursday, 24 February 2005 23:58 (twenty years ago)

One of my livejournal "friends" - oh god, I hate her. She like is a spoiled college kid whose parents buy her Marc Jacobs handbags and she always talks about her shitty poetry and how beautiful she is, and I would like to secretly muffle her with a pillow.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

I am incredibly self-absorbed, and my blog is all me vomiting out my constantly-slightly-revised plans for the rest of college because nobody I know wants to hear about it as much as I want to obsess over it. I don't give out the link randomly though, it's not like I really want people to *read* it.

Some people write really interesting blogs about things outside of themselves, though. I am impressed by them.

― Maria (Maria), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:12 (twenty years ago)

blog is beautiful

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:13 (twenty years ago)

its part of our evolution into beings of pure light and energy

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:13 (twenty years ago)

and they promote literacy!

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:15 (twenty years ago)

i have a blog but i try to keep the self-absorption to a minimum.
-- jbr (theundergroundhom...) (webmail), February 24th, 2005 5:53 PM. (Jody Beth Rosen) (link)
i am self-absorbed though.

-- jbr (theundergroundhom...) (webmail), February 24th, 2005 5:54 PM. (Jody Beth Rosen) (link)

Yes.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:27 (twenty years ago)

I'm so self-absorbed I can't be bothered to start a blog.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:32 (twenty years ago)

i dunno kate, you seem pretty self-absorbed to me.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 February 2005 00:46 (twenty years ago)

I love to communicate. I used to make magazines for my family when I was a kid. Blogging just seems like an extention of that, I don't think it's just a case of communicating who you are so much as constructing a narrative of yourself. It's a kind of fiction, or a selection of details, an editing process which you have control over. It's better to self-edit than be edited by other people.

Since I believe very much in vicious and virtuous circles -- that negativity breeds negativity, and positivity breeds positivity -- I tend to stress the positive in my blog. The danger is that it sounds a bit breathless and hypey, but I prefer that to sounding groany and moany. Whether the result is rampant narcissism or the sharing of interesting information and experiences is a glass-half-empty, glass-half-full sort of question, but the nice thing is that nobody's compelled to read the stuff.

Or listen to it. I'm writing this to pass the time as I sit on a snowy street corner in Tokyo hacking into someone's wifi signal, uploading a 17.8MB file of a radio ramble to my blog. I am either insane or blogging is just inherently worth doing.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:35 (twenty years ago)

Amst, you're not confusing your kates are you?

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:52 (twenty years ago)

i might be. is this the kate with the obsession with greasy-haired english pop stars or whatever?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:53 (twenty years ago)

Erm, No.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:54 (twenty years ago)

But hey, its nice to know that you feel fine with insulting people you dont know anyway, good for you.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:55 (twenty years ago)

I love to communicate. I used to make magazines for my family when I was a kid. Blogging just seems like an extention of that, I don't think it's just a case of communicating who you are so much as constructing a narrative of yourself. It's a kind of fiction, or a selection of details, an editing process which you have control over. It's better to self-edit than be edited by other people.

Momus, thats great :) That sums up how I feel about journalling in general, not just online - Ive done some form of online ongoing narrative since before any blog type thing existed, and I enjoy telling stories.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:57 (twenty years ago)

pardon? i said above that i was self-absorbed. if i'm insulting kate, i'm insulting myself just as well. it was intended more of an observation than an insult.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:57 (twenty years ago)

anyway, most of us on ilx don't know each other in real life, and things here get snarky enough to qualify as insulting many, many times; so whatever i did is hardly exceptional and certainly no kind of extreme.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 25 February 2005 01:58 (twenty years ago)

It's better to self-edit than be edited by other people.

only if you're a good editor ;-) (not saying anyone here isn't)

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 25 February 2005 02:16 (twenty years ago)

http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/dull/

― LaToya JaXoN (JasonD), Friday, 25 February 2005 02:19 (twenty years ago)

are people who keep blogs extremely self-absorbed?
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What on earth are you talking about?

― EComplex (EComplex), Friday, 25 February 2005 03:40 (twenty years ago)

I think i blog cossa Doogie Howser. My favorite part of that tv show was at the end when he would boot up his x386 DOS word program and write a few paragraphs about what he got out of the previous days' events. It seemed to put his mind at ease, and it appeared that each time he would learn something about himself. That was probably the start of it for me at least..

I've always typed out a journal on my computer, ever since the DOS days. When livejournal came i did that and then i had a deadjournal for a while and now i just have a blogger account, it makes it easier to keep things organized (the dates/times/filing is automated). It's fun to create things for other people with it sometimes, but mostly its for my own inner thinkings...

― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Friday, 25 February 2005 04:30 (twenty years ago)

The Wordpress thread has reminded me of the *real* reason I have a blog -- to tinker with it. It's not a place for serious writing any more than my dad's workshop in the garage is a place to build a skyscraper. I have a website because it's a good way to learn about websites. The content on my site is extremely secondary.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Friday, 25 February 2005 04:35 (twenty years ago)

In other words, don't bother reading my blog.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Friday, 25 February 2005 04:35 (twenty years ago)

The only time I put myself first is when I go online, so I suppose it would follow that I would create entries on my journal that would have the appearance of being completely egotistical. But, in reality, this is not how I live my life outside these silicon walls. When I'm out there living my life, I rarely give myself a thought. I cease to exist as an independent person. I enjoy things, sure, and I feel feelings, yes, but I don't distinguish myself as a being separate from the humanity I'm surrounded by. Which is sorta NOT the definition of self-absorption, really.

I think that you would have to be pretty self-sacrificing IRL in order to be an active participant in the online world, because by participating so regularly online, you're engaging in an activity that requires a healthy store of self-absorption. So I feel that Jordan is very OTM.

― Surreal Addiction (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 25 February 2005 04:40 (twenty years ago)

Hi Amateurist. My name's Kate, there are many people called Kate, I am but one of them.

― the other kate (ffs!) (papa november), Friday, 25 February 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

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