Long Live the Blog

The Internet, since the advent of the browser, has been around about 10 years. I remember using Mosaic in about 1994, which means there was likely a rudimentary browser in 1992. Certainly, the Internet itself has been around a lot longer, although you could only use tools like archie, ftp, telnet, and email. Nothing has brought about the modern revolution in technology than the browser, and the sites that grew around it.

However, only in the last few years, say, since 2002, has blogging really taken off. Most of that has coincided with blogging software and blogging websites. In fact. blogging has existed far longer than the term blogging (short for, "web logging"). I was reading "blogs" since 1997. At that point, bloggers probably used HTML or something a little fancier than that, and did their own hosting.

The blogs I find most interesting to read are from those whose lives are messed up. They lead such different lives from yourself, and you read the train wreck that goes around them. They're pretentious, they're assholes, but by golly, that's what makes reading them fun.

I wonder if the concept will expand beyond mere blogging. For a while, before it became overly commercial, people used to have webcams, and put their lives on film. This appealed to some latent voyeuristic tendencies that many of us don't care to admit we have. I've seen a few in my day. Before bandwidth become sufficiently large, webcams would only refresh about once a minute, with some miserly sites updating as infrequently as once every few minutes.

Even though you get a peek to what people do in a single room twice a minute (or so), it says far less about a person than a blog does. People end up sitting in front of a computer chatting, occasionally, leaving and entering a room. If they stream sound, then it's only interesting if they talk to people.

if people use blogs to live their lives (or thoughts) for public consumption, then having a webcam and an audio feed ought to, in principle, give us even more of their lives and thoughts, and yet, it doesn't. Take away the audio feed, and it's like looking at surveillance video. You get only a passing sense of what is going on.

All of this begs the question: why do I read blogs? For me, I look for a blog to give me insight into other people. How do other people view the world? I know their views can be completely distorted. Some blogs are complete rantfests. Some write only when they're depressed. Some leave out many details of their lives. What you see, therefore, isn't what you get. It's the author giving you a filtered view of their lives.

I'll also read informational blogs that talk about technology, writing software, movie reviews, and the like. Although they don't appeal to my sense of wanting to understand people, they are useful in their own right.

Hmm, I need to blog about Tony Kornheiser. That is unrelated to the topic at hand, but it faintly resembles Kornheisers own columns which cover a myriad of topics, often vaguely related to one another. Except he's skilled and funny and can make a living on it, and I'm writing to a tiny audience who somehow manages to be patient enough to read my stream of conciousness spoutings.