The illusion that we’re spying on “secret” kisses sells millions of movie tickets every year.
Danny O’Brien’s Oblomovka has some great stuff to say about blogs and the borderlines of public, private, and secret:
In the real world, we have conversations in public, in private, and in secret. All three are quite separate….
On the net, you have public, or you have secrets. The private intermediate sphere, with its careful buffering. is shattered. E-mails are forwarded verbatim. IRC transcripts, with throwaway comments, are preserved forever. You talk to your friends online, you talk to the world.
This is why, incidentally, why people hate blogs so much. My God, people say, how can Livejournallers be so self-obsessed? Oh, Christ, is Xeni talking about LA art again? Why won’t they all shut up?
The answer why they won’t shut up is – they’re not talking to you. They’re talking in the private register of blogs, that confidential style between secret-and-public…They’re writing for friends who are interested in their hobbies and their life. Meanwhile, you’re standing fifty yards away with a sneer, a telephoto lens and a directional microphone. Who’s obsessed now?
Read the whole post, lots of great stuff, starting off with Foo camp and Andrew Orlowski–who can kiss mah grits –preferably in public.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Elayne Riggs // Oct 15, 2003 at 12:30 pm
I don’t think it’s merely a public vs. private sphere problem. I think it’s very dependent on the skills of the writer. A lot of people think that because they have a keyboard and are able to find the letters on it this automatically makes them good writers. It takes a certain knack to be able to judge how to phrase what are essentially diary entries so that other folks will care enough to read them and be entertained or informed by them. If folks actually do hate blogs (are blogs even well-known enough to have engendered that much hatred yet?) it may be almost entirely attributed to the skill (or lack thereof) of their writers.
2 Betsy Devine // Oct 15, 2003 at 6:29 pm
I like the immediacy and “private” voice of weblogs. Most blogs I like are well-written, but some are just dashed off ideas from hurried people. If I’m interested in the people,or the stuff they talk about, I like them. Like you, I wonder, what is the point for anyone to hate weblogs?
3 jr // Oct 16, 2003 at 12:55 pm
Reasons to hate blogs, jealousy, lack of vision, lack of ability, inability to look at blogs in context, mostly because it goes against the grain of the good republican life.
I am aware that what is blogged is public but that doesnt mean I dont have secrets, oh boy do I have secrets! Like the time I almost…
PS I dont remember seeing a You must write gooder clause in my blog contract.
4 Betsy Devine // Oct 16, 2003 at 2:04 pm
That’s because you already write so good, jr ;-)