In Defense of Blogging

Following a couple of comments from a random internet troll, I thought that I'd write a quick post in defense of blogging.

People tend to conflate blogging, social networking sites (myspace, friendster, facebook), and chat rooms. People also tend to assume that involvement in any of the above leads to some kind of perverse internet addiction that precludes the ability to function in the real world. Those assumptions and comparisons are manifestly absurd.

I'm not interested in arguing about social networking sites or chat rooms since I don't “use” either regularly. I'll just point out that social networking sites, while they can expose people to e-stalkers and so on, can also be used to get back in touch with old friends. (I've been lucky enough to re-establish old friendships with people who I would never have seen again otherwise via friendster.)

I do “use” blogging, however. Blogging serves two basic purposes: First, it allows people to keep tabs on their friends who they may or may not see regularly in the real world. As groups of friends move away from one another for work or school, blogging allows a degree of genuine knowledge about one another's lives and, via e-mail and blog comments, correspondence can (and does) occur much more regularly than it did in the era of paper letters. Thanks to their blogs, I have regular contact with friends from Austria to Seattle.

Second, blogging can serve as a useful form of social networking, not in the sense of some kind of crude corporate hob-nobbing, but as a forum in which to exchange ideas and extend approbation or disapproval to them. In other words, blogging can be a socially useful form of gossip.

People critical of blogging usually accuse bloggers of “wasting” their time and/or having no contacts in real life. Regarding the latter point, I suppose it would be possible to sit there in front of a computer and blog all day using only what one found on the internet, but the fact is almost everything people actually blog about is based on things that happened in real life. The archetypal blog post is a funny anecdote about something that happened earlier that day or that week. In fact, blogging doesn't lend itself to use by people with no “real life.” The more one lives in the real world, the more one has to blog about.

Regarding the former point, that blogging is a waste of time, it can only be considered a “waste” if conversation itself is considered a waste. Again, blogging is a way of carrying on conversations between people who might not have the chance to do so in person. Most of my circle of co-bloggers (i.e. people whose blogs I read and who presumably read mine) live 500+ miles away. Even when posts are read by people who do see each other personally, it's an ideal forum in which to exchange ideas in print, which allows a degree of reflection not possible in spoken conversation.

Finally, even someone like me who posts about once a day and reads 20 or so blogs a day spends a grand total of 20 – 25 minutes a day with blogs. How much time do most people spend commuting? How much time do most people spend watching television? How many utterly useless activities take up most of the leisure time of most Americans? I'd argue that blogging is much less of a “waste” of time than most other leisure activities (of Americans, anyway), period.

So, trolls or no, I'm going to keep plugging away.

P.S. Regarding Guns n' Roses: I'll be the first to agree that Appetite for Destruction was a great rock album. But face facts: both of the Use Your Illusion albums were lousy, and hair metal's demise at the hands of grunge was long overdue. It was too ridiculous on too many levels to take itself that seriously. What pissed me off about Axl's comments (I doubt the troll that started this bothered to read the link to the article I included in my previous post) was that they betrayed how little he's changed: he still thinks he's king-shit rock star, 15 years after the fact. Eagles of Death Metal fundamentally work because they know just how ridiculous the paegentry is. Something can be silly and over the top and still be great (think The Darkness).

I'll stand by my original argument: Axl is washed-up.