I’ve contemplated asking for reccomendations on what is a good blog these days (Is livejournal still the numero-uno choice?) but I then have to ask myself what’s the point?
Why on earth would I want to ramble a load of bollocks into a page that nobody will ever read because nobody knows who I am nor could care less what I’ve got to say.
At least on a MB you have a ready-made audience. It may be a bad thing to litter it with your boring crap so you try to make what you type more interesting. You have a good reason to make it worth reading, whereas on a Blog that reason isn’t there. There’s no instant feedback, no instant gratification for what you put up there so you are not compelled to put anything up there…
Unless you are one of those lucky people who can think far into the future.
I’ve tried blogging in the past. It died a death.
I started my blogging career right after college, as a way to keep in touch with many friends at once without having to email them all individually. I’d just post about my random day to day shit, and I’d read theirs and comment on their random day to day shit.
This was 2001ish, and back then there weren’t nearly as many blogs as today, so my random day-to-day shit caught the eye of many strangers who stumbled there looking for any variety of keywords that I happened to mention in my posts. It was fun to get feedback in that way.
Message boards aren’t great for the kind of nonsense I usually post in my blogs. For example, my latest entry is about how much I hate Christmas shopping and crowded parking lots. It may have fit in MPSIMS, but really I didn’t care who read it… just wanted to let off a little steam and hopefully entertain the few friends and family who read the blog.
I’m not sure why anyone believes you have to have a constantly interesting life to have a blog.
Blog doesn’t equal a search for fame. Some people might use theirs that way, but it can be whatever you want it to be.
Want to keep in touch with people you already know? Write in your blog and send them a link. Want to keep a written record of your life to remember things or see how you’ve changed/grown? Write in a blog and keep an electronic record. Unless you draw attention to it, nobody will see it. Plus, most blogs give you the ability to screen who sees it from everyone to no one. Want to write about your life and maybe make a few friends? Get a blog and poke around to find like minded people. Post to your blog and share.
As for message boards being the “everyone else’s” blog, I think there are a few people who post TOO MUCH on this big ol’ board when a blog would be more beneficial for them.
Having said all that, why in the world would you limit your participation in something based on a strange idea that only certain people have lives worthy of sharing?
I’m not a fan of blogs that report their daily activities as though it’s really fascinating to know how early they got up and how long it took to shovel. I guess some people like that style, but I don’t want to HEAR about it from my friends (not all the time, anyway), and I sure don’t want to read about it. Even worse are the ones that share their intestinal upsets and how their bowels are doing, or how they plan to have sex when they get home from dinner. Who the hell cares? I don’t understand what kind of place these people grew up in. I’d rather read something they have an opinion on, or their thoughts on some issue, rather than a minute-by-minute account of their workday. But that type of blog seems to be what most people do. Just not my preferred style, I guess.
I have a couple of blogs. Some stuff I post in both places and some in just one or the other. I mostly write commentary about things I’ve read in the news, or funny (hopefully) stories I am writing, or photographs I’ve taken. I get a decent number of readers. But it’s mostly for me: to say things I want to say and as an outlet for creative expression. If it went Dooce, great. But it probably never will.
One great advantage to LiveJournal is that if you have any kind of hobby or interest there is probably a community for it. I have made friends (in real life too!) via the communities I’m interested in and gotten a ton of information on things I do for hobbies.
It seems to me that you don’t need to do something exciting or noteworthy every day, just once in a while. Then, don’t post unless something fun happens. No need to post every single day.
My LJ friends and I use it as a way to keep up with each other. Nah, we don’t necessarily have anything exciting and new to post, but we share links, funny stories, sad stuff (and get support and sympathy) and otherwise share stuff you’d tell your friends IRL if you saw 'em regularly. I mean, I don’t know about you, but my conversations with my IRL friends don’t usually entail earth-shaking news on a day-to-day basis either…
I blog about random stuff plus poetry stuff. I get quite a few readers and have made friends. It’s free. It’s easy. It’s fun. Can’t beat that with a stick.
I blog on an alumni site and use it primarily to keep in touch with classmates of mine whereas otherwise it would be too onerous to keep in touch with all of them one-on-one. We mostly live in different cities and write about our jobs, graduate school, SOs, trials and travails, apartments and roommates, everything. It’s fascinating! Sometimes it turns into a blog-wide debate over something specific and academic, like eugenics, and it’s a well-educated bunch, so these are always very interesting, but also little memes like cookie recipes or first kiss stories. I feel so much richer for contributing to and maintaining the community. I’ve also gained a little following from my writing style and, since I want to be a writer, this is encouraging to me. It also makes me write every day, which has been invaluable to me. If it’s important, I read 50-100 people’s updates regularly. About 200 read mine on a given update.
Blogging is one of those random things that a large portion of the population talks incessantly about, yet knows nothing about, like rap music or video games or Myspace.
A blog is just a web site where one person, or a group of people writes some shit down. that’s it. It might be intense, cite-laden politics, it might be snarky recaps of reality TV shows, or it might be like mine, which is spent mostly posting photos, keeping in touch with people I don’t see every day, and other deep insights. It might have 1.3 million daily readers, or it might have nine in a week. You might mention the name of your local bar, or you might not reveal what country you’re posting from.
If you don’t want to impress anyone, don’t. No one cares. If you do, go ahead and try. Maybe someone will. The only expectations you have to meet are your own. It’s free, and it’s only electrons.
For me, at least, the difference between blogging and MBs is that I genuinely don’t care who reads my blog posts. With message boards, I find myself writing for an audience, even if it’s an OP and not a reply.
The former, for me, feels more “natural” to me, in that it’s closer to my internal voice, without trying to anticipate the reactions of readers. IOW, a blog feels more natural when I just need to write and/or vent. MBs, however, are better when I’m looking for empathy or for input/advice. Different mediums for different needs, imho.
I’d be embarrassed to post the stuff on my livejournal here, just because it would seem incredibly self-absorbed.
I’ve crossposted a few comic related things (which generally sank like stones).
On my livejournal I put up writing & art, pictures of me in kimono, and random stuff. It’s not really about my life at all. Speaking of there’s a post I need to prepare when I get home.
Writing something out can be a tool for helping you understand it. I don’t (only) mean deeply buried personal trauma; it works for things like sorting out your thoughts about a movie or a phrase or a football game or anything.
You begin to write about a topic, and then you realize you’ve got a bunch of thoughts on it piling up. So you keep plugging at it, putting the ideas in some kind of order and hierarchy, and before long you figure out what your main point is, and what the root of that point is, and next thing you know, you’ve learned something.
I’ve had a blog for nearly five years. I decided when I first started that I would never write a “today I went to the store” post. I’m not suggesting that they’ve all been as deep as a Hugh Kenner essay, but I’ve often found that in writing a post out, I figure out what I’m really trying to say. And there’s no substitute for actually writing it all out; sitting and thinking about it for a while isn’t even remotely the same.
My blog usually gets about 6-10 hits a day, apparently from people I know IRL. That’s fine; I don’t write it for others to read, or even for myself to read. I’m writing it for me to write.
I have a LiveJournal. I love LJ. Most of my friends have LJs and I can keep up with them even when I’m off in darkest Europe. I’m a terrible correspondent, and LJ has been a godsend. Because of it, I am still friends with people I know I would have drifted away from if our relationship was based solely on email. A really good friend (who doesn’t have LJ), I email with maybe once a month and I have an idea of what she’s doing, but with my friends who do have LJ, I know what they wore to their office Christmas parties, how much they hate the Christmas Shoes song, and what operas they’re planning on seeing in 2008.
Maybe I’m lucky, but the people on my flist are pretty funny, too.
It’s like having a personal message board with a specialized audience.
OTOH, I have a proper blog, to write about my experiences in Bulgaria, which I have been shit at maintaining. YMMV.
I think blogging is great for ordinary people who have some persistent theme or interest about which to blog - I’ll certainly subscribe to the blogs of ordinary strangers if I know they’re likely to write more entries that will interest me.
Exactly! There are good blogs out there about music, art, and various games for example. Some of them are written by people just for love of the subject, not to court an audience. Others start out that way, but then the blogger notices they have an audience and so starts to “speak” to them more directly.
Wow, that last blog is cool.
I agree with Mangetrout that a blog is nice for a persistent theme or interest, and with Jackelope that writing helps focus one’s thoughts, and with several others who like to keep in touch with friends through blogs.
I suppose the whole blogging thing can frequently come off as some sort of cliquish mutual masturbation society–but I’ve seen that with message boards, as well.
I keep two blogs, and neither of them are exactly “A-List.”
One is just random thoughts and the other has been mostly photos taken around my neck of the woods.
There are also several Dopers whose blogs I follow.
