Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Blogging, Web-Logging, & Online Journals
@HOME. I'm actually sick as a dog right now which gave me a chance to read and catch up with all my favorite Bloggers. I've read quite a few blogs tonight which talked about fake Bloggers, commenting etiquette, etc. Well as for the fake Bloggers, as I said in a post earlier this year (and my senior thesis about anonymity on the Internet), the ability for anonymity online is a great thing which can be either destructive or protective depending on the person it affects or the person using it. I'm not taking any particular side on this, but it's my personal belief that it's just not real kosher to try and deceive people intentionally, but hey it happens, so get over it girls.
As for blog commenting etiquette, comment if you want, but remember no one should ever expect that commenting on a blog automatically deserves anything reciprocal. So many people think that because they leave a comment that it’s expected for the blog owner to view their blog, comment, and even provide a reciprocal link. Newsflash my darlings, people just don’t have time for that shit. Personally I do usually look at everyone’s blog who leaves me a comment, but I only return comment if I find something interesting enough to comment on, and I only provide reciprocal links for those blogs who I find remotely interesting.
Let's talk about the blog-o-sphere here for a minute. I'm always amazed every day at how many people are 'blogging' these days. As I look back at my archives, both blog archives and personal online writing archives, I realize that I've been doing this for almost 10 years now.
[FLAHSBACK MOMENT] Of course back then there was no such thing as Blogger or a 'Blog.' Similar to now, I simply enjoyed writing about my feelings and the things that were going on in my life. I typically posted my entries as individual pages on my website. I guess that was the advantage of being a closet computer geek early in life. I mean sure there are plenty of kids growing up with an overwhelming technical knowledge these days, but I was online back in the days of the 300 Baud Modem (do people even still use modems?), the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS's) and something called Relay Chat on the Yale mainframe. How many of you remember that? It was actually my junior year at Penn State University in 1992 when the 'World Wide Web' was unveiled and introduced to the world. It didn't look like much then, but I was an early adopter and was one of the first to have a webpage up in the space provided to me by the university. There was no flash, no tables, no xml, no style sheets, that's right pretty much nothing that makes the web of today possible or pretty. Web pages and 'Online Journals' were much different back then. [/FLASHBACK MOMENT]
Anyway, all these years of keeping an online journal I've kept a few rules for myself:
RULE #1 -- DON'T COMPROMISE YOUR WRITING FOR ANYONE! Every time I sit down to write I swear to myself that I'm not going to compromise my writing for the sake of anyone else, and I usually don’t. I write when I feel like it, and I write whatever I feel like at the moment I sit down in front of the computer. Sometimes its pre-meditated content, sometimes it's completely on the fly from my mind to my fingers. It all just depends on my mood, but one thing is for sure that I don't censor myself or write for the pleasure of the masses. I write for myself, period. I don’t swear profusely in my blog not because it offends people, but because I don’t swear much personally in real life. I don’t try to be unusually witty or funny in my blog because I’m just not like that in real life. Sometimes I have my moments but usually I’m either serious or more often sarcastic. That’s just me, and that’s the way I write.
RULE #2 - DON'T LOOK FOR SOCIAL APPROVAL IN YOUR WRITING As much as I love receiving comments from people regarding my blog entries, unless I specifically ask for feedback from my readers, I'm not writing with the intention of receiving feedback in mind. Refer to Rule #1, I write what I want, when I want. I know some readers enjoy reading what I write, while others think it's over the top and even others think it’s boring. I couldn’t agree with all of you more, because some days it’s one of these and other days is all of these, but this is great because these days there's something for everyone out there and if you don't like what I have to say you can always close the browser or click on another link. Adios.
RULE #3 - WRITE WHENEVER YOU FEEL LIKE IT Sometimes I write several times a day, sometimes I go for weeks or months without writing. I've had friends say in the past "You need to write something, you have written in a while." All I can say to that is Refer to Rule #1, then refer to Rule #2, and lastly fuck off because I'm not your daily entertainment. I write because I'm either in the mood to write, share some information, post some photos, or whatever. When I don't write it’s because either I don’t feel like it, I have a real life which I greatly enjoy, or the simple fact that some things just aren't worth writing about.
Ok anyway I’m pretty much done with this posting. I’ve gotten so off track here that I can’t even remember why I started writing in the first place. I think it was something to do with me not believing how many people are blogging these days and blah..blah..blah.
God I'm such a freaking pee-brain tonight. Must be the cold meds, I need to go lay down. Cheers.
I totally agree with you about your rules. But I've been guilty of breaking one or two from time to time. I've removed posts but only if I felt they were hurtful and it was something that I felt I should deal with on a more personal level (aka real world face to face). I didn't start my blog with the idea of making friends but I've made some really great friends and met some amazing people because of it. So I'm sure from time to time I've written about something I know would amuse or interest a certain person. And I definitely write whenever I feel like it, which is pretty much every day (I also talk a lot).
Anyway, hope you feel better. I think everyone in town is sick right now. Probably due to that enormous spit swapping love fest at Charlie's on Saturday.
: )
|______________________________________________________________________ posted by potusol @ Thursday, December 08, 2005 4:18:00 PM
haha. I like this post. I totally agree with it.
|______________________________________________________________________ posted by jjd @ Friday, December 09, 2005 1:18:00 PM
