Reconstruction 6.4 (2006)
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Why I Blog: Part 1 | Part 2
The following bloggers were requested by Reconstruction to post a blog on why they blog. The blog post title (in "quotes") is an external link to the blogger's full response.
Introductions written by Michael Benton.
Inspector Lohmann
Ponderance
I Cite
The Executioner's Thong
Le Blagueur à Paris
Thoughts on the Eve of the Apocalypse
New Mappings
Mr Bloom's Dental Windows
Musings of the Moribund
In Palinode's Place
Klintron's Brain
Sarapen
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Annotated Life
Indie Castle
Emphasis Added
Implications and Experiences
The Loneliest Jukebox
Foxy Librarian
Planet Grenada
Camels Back and Forth
Bookmark My Heart
Delagar
Reginald Primrose
The Feminist Spectator
Inspector Lohmann
(Toronto, Canada)
The good Inspector operates one of the most fascinating blogs around (another blog that vies for the top spot on my list is El Oso, El Moreno and El Abogado) and his posts are rich with quotes, resources and unique insights. I generally feel as if I have taken an enjoyable cultural studies course with him after some of his longer posts. To check out a particularly interesting blogging thread, refer to the linked section of posts on the left side of the blog: "Of Zombies, Bloggers, and The Will To Power As Disappearance." Special bonus points for cineastes that know what classic film character was called Inspector Lohmann.
"The very act of articulating a thought, of finding concrete words to express onself, gives shape to the inchoate, amorphous swirl of our notions, sensations and impressions. Writing is a creative process, a feedback loop like any other creative act, one that gives shape to the product it is in the very act of creating. Even trying to convey something as simple as "my soup is hot" or "terrorists suck" gives form and meaning in an attempt to make sense of one's world, to come to an understanding of it, and convey that understanding to others. And that's the key. The wish to convey one's understanding of the world to others asserts one's existence. That most blogs are nothing more than online journals is decisive, for the intent is not to communicate one's thoughts to oneself, but are, rather, intentioned attempts to share oneself with others, and is, thus, necessarily a way to discover or create community, to find someone who will witness one's thoughts, one's experience. It is a call that says "I am living, and this is what I see, what I feel, what I think"--whether or not that call is answered. The desire to blog is a testament to our innate wish to connect with others: it is tossing out a line into the ether, one that asserts our existence through our voice, a voice that wants to be heard; or, put another way, they are messages in a bottle tossed into the ocean that is the blogosphere, messages which have the potential of finding a sympathetic reader who understands; and thus a connection is made, a community is formed. The understandable complaints about the general mediocrity or vapidity of blogs misses the point. Bloggers wish to connect, to assert their unique take on the world; and, in so doing, can find others who understand them. And so communities are formed amongst various genera, species, and families of bloggers who recognize their own kind amidst the vast forest of voices, following blogroll pheromones to find their rightful clan--for indeed blogrolls are demographic pheromones that help steer people to others who might share one's interests... and thus is a community extended."
After reading Lohmann's post on blogging visit this post at Wealth Bondage (featured in the 1st part of "Why We Blog") for a great example of how an original post is blogged somewhere else, effectively extending and refining the original post: "Lohmann's Latest Assay."
Ponderance
(Perth, Australia)
Tama Leaver, who describes himself as an "avid" blogger, is one of our essay contributors for this issue. Tama completed his doctoral candidature in English Communication and Cultural Studies at Western Australia University with the submission and acceptance of his thesis: "Artificialities: From Artificial Intelligence to Artificial Culture - Subjectivity, Embodiment and Technology in Contemporary Speculative Texts."
"In 2005 I was also lucky to be asked to run an honours-level course in Communication Studies. The course I came up with, iGeneration: Digital Communication & Partcipatory Culture, was looking critically at the cutting edge of digital media and with a smaller class I again ran the course via a blog, but this time with everything blogged: the syllabus, the weekly readings, students assignments and their many reflections all appeared in the blog. The course was fairly small, and the intimacy of interactions in the face to face seminar quickly mapped onto long conversations and comments in the course blogs. Also, iGeneration was the first tertiary course to ask students to create podcasts as their major research project, and the outcomes were very impressive with everything from a 'podplay' in the style of a 1930s RKO radio play, through to an alternative audio commentary for a particular episode of The Simpsons. As the iGeneration course blog remains online today, the materials and assignments have a lifespan as public resources and media, contributing back to the participatory cultural spheres which we examined. Also, with the use of a Creative Commons license, the students and I were pleased to be able to put the entire course syllabus online via the blog, and explicitly indicate that any other students or academics who wish to use any or all of the course materials are more than welcome (and legally able) to do so. In teaching and learning terms, when used well I think blogs are an amazingly useful teaching platform (when mixed with face to face contact still, whenever possible), with the social lessons of participatory culture meaningfully informing scholarly ideas and practices about digital culture and online communication."
I Cite
(USA)
Jodi Dean is a published cultural/political theorist. As a reader I enjoy the high quality of her writing, her theoretical interpretations of cultural texts, and the energetic discussions of the visitors to her blog. As a film teacher I have used some of her posts with my students, for example this one on David Cronenberg's A History of Violence .
"Why Blog"
"I started I Cite for a two reasons. First, I was becoming increasingly outraged by the acceptability of torture in American politics. I wanted to start documenting this phenomenon. Second, my academic writing has been quite critical of political potential of networked communications. My notion of communicative capitalism attempts to conceptualize the ideological function of democracy in the service of intensifications and expansions of capitalism. I had started research on blogs and found that thinking about blogging from a distance was not particularly useful. So, I decided to blog as a kind of participant-observer exercise."
The Executioner's Thong
(USA)
I first came across Greensmile's blog through the Progressive Blog Alliance. The PBA and Executioner's Thong are a great example of bloggers coming together to work on issues that they believe are important.
"Tool Use in the 21st Century"
"I claim little or no objectivity in my observations of how blogging has changed me, turned me toward a new face of society. We are electronic nomads who can redefine our boundaries and groups at will. Boredom and fashion tug at us making our clicks ebb and flow. Certainly, my memory is weaker, in my late 50's than it used to be. Yet my reading, though in ever smaller snatches, has become incessant and wide ranging. I fear not to read from a dozen different MSM news websites and twice that many blogs every day, buttressing and overlaying multiple impressions and selections of the days news until I feel like I have a grasp of the whole world on this day, or as much of it as interests me. And if I cannot recall the fact or the name or the date, I have bookmarks and always keep up a copy of Notepad to paste in URLs and paragraphs. And I mail this digest of the digest to my infinite google mailbox at the end of the day. Fearless of ever forgetting or missing either the news or its meaning, how shall I age? Living and being in this world is not an exact science yet it is an experimental one. Each of us has a unique voice but many of us have not yet spoken. I'd invite you to start a blog because it is easy and because it subjects you to the self discipline of an imagined audience [which could materialize, who knows?]. Under those experimental conditions, write. Forget what you think will happen and just see what changes you undergo."
Le Blagueur à Paris
(Paris, France)
Meg's blog focuses on her cultural experiences in Paris and elsewhere. She has a warm, intelligent style of writing. In her contribution Meg provides a witty conception of blogging through the 7 Deadly Sins and links back to an earlier post of rules for new bloggers.
"Blogging Hands are the Devil's Playthings"
"Pride may be my worst sin, Father. I am love with the word, but not His. On a given day I may post, edit, and re-read my work twenty times. I deceive myself into thinking that I have an "audience" and expect at any moment to be recognized on the street."
Thoughts on the Eve of the Apocalypse
(USA)
Bill's blog was one the first that I read regularly because he had a knack for compiling and organizing strong political threads, allowing me to easily gather information about current political events. As life intervenes he regularly goes off on a hiatus, only to pop again, blogging like crazy.
"At an intellectual level, I blog because of my interest in the social construction of knowledge. I'm interested in how ideas are disseminated; how they're imbued with meaning or importance; how narratives are forged; how culture is shaped by power, and vice versa. Blogging is, for me, quite simply about playing some kind of regular, consistent role shaping and molding social discourse. I'm under no delusion that what I do here plays a major role in the larger culture, but the thinking is that every little effort, or utterance, matters. My major inspiration for blogging tends to come from critical pedagogy, particularly theorists like Henry Giroux, who has argued persuasively over the years that the navigation of everyday culture is where people have their most profound pedagogical experiences. In other words, people learn the most about the world via their interactions outside of formal educational institutions, precisely in those situations when they're not supposed to be "learning" anything. It is my belief that we, as citizens and educators, broadly defined, desperately need to come to grips with the implication that culture is, above all, about pedagogy."
New Mappings
(Aalborg, Denmark)
Steen Christiansen is a doctoral student at Aalborg University who set up New Mappings to work on his dissertation on science fiction and postmodern culture, but it also seems to be a place for general cultural criticism. Steen maintains both Danish and English websites.
"But here is a split again, for if I wrote only for myself, why publish it to the web? In other words, blogging splits me, since I write not only for me but also for others, yet in this process I allow an internal process - thinking - to become external. This external, (im)material form of my thought is my blog, which is not part of me. My mind is no longer confined to my body, my though process becomes virtual, so is it still me? Gray Kochar-Lindgren writes in TechnoLogics that we, as free ideal beings, are not ‘somehow constrained, captured against our will by the machine-assemblages in one version or another of the iron cage of materialism. It means that the very form of our being, in the simplest form of daily life, is to be technobios, to be cyborg'. (Kochhar-Lindgren, TechnoLogics)"
Mr Bloom's Dental Windows
(United Kingdom)
Molly Bloom is a very active blogger who posts a wide range of creative writing and critical commentaries. Like more and more bloggers, she not only maintains her own personal blog, but also belongs to collective blogs (see her profile for a list).
"Beckett, Joyce, Proust and Habit Blogging"
"Through my writing, I want to move forward. I want to blaze with feeling for once. I want to challenge art. I want to be a woman in my own right. I'd like to be accepted as someone who has something to say...someone worth listening to...I want to sense the fluid and the vital...face my destiny like Molly in 'Ulysses'. Language at once becomes fertile, passionate and alive. I have made a conscious effort, like Molly and Bloom, to remember the past here and create hope for the future. I am glad that I have explored parts of my character through blogging that I never thought I would, because I have escaped fomr the boundaries of a sanctuary that has protected me all my life. I am glad that I have met you all along the way - you do all mean so much to me in your different, refreshing ways. I have found parts of it strangely liberating, because now I am able to start afresh with my life. For once in my life, I took some risks."
Joseph K's blog is a combination of vivid photos, interspersed with critical commentaries.
"The web-log offers the possibility of those intellectually isolated artists and thinkers to explore broader areas and find others who have similar interests or who have interests in taking up the discussion of such interests. This of course goes for other groups who are feeling isolated too. On a broader level, what we see in the weblog is the possibility of a kind of intentional community--solving the problem of Marshall McLuhan's global village a bit, by offering (two-way) communication that is instantaneous in bridging space and time and gratifying. In short I blog because I have the opportunity to send out ideas and interact with others about them in a wide variety of media and areas. As an intellectual loner I have been given for the first time the opportunity to become a member of a meaningful community."
In Palinode's Place
(Canada)
Palinode is a cultural critic who writes longer posts that cover a wide range of materials. In the post below he provides some personal history of the earlier days of the Internet as a context for his understanding of blogging.
"It is my firm belief that blogs, like books of poetry or really good jokes, are useless. I mean that in the best sense of the word. Weblogs may hone your writing and debating skills. Some blogs advertise products and make money for their authors, some provide information for professionals, and it's said that the entirety of Web 2.0 is blog-based. I suppose that weblogs in the aggregate recapitulate the basic architecture of the web - small pieces loosely joined - and are therefore a useful object of thought and experiment, but I think of blogs chiefly as a literary form, a kind of refined speech that falls somewhere between the private and the published. Anyone who's posted a conversation or an anecdote on a blog knows how easy it is to reshape facts on the fly and produce a piece of instant lit."
Klintron's Brain
(Portland, Oregon: USA)
Klintron is all over the place, besides this blog, you can find him commenting on the new and weird (not a bad thing) at the collective Technoccult and at many of your better collective political/cultural blogging sites like American Samizdat and for social progressives like WorldChanging Portland.
"Why Blog"
"Since that time I've added at least one major function: making money. Actually, when I started my longest running blog Technoccult, money was a motivator. That was just around the time of the dot com crash, and the idea that a hobby site could make money from advertising still seemed valid. The idea quickly fizzled, and for years I ran Technoccult, and later this blog, without ads or any intention of ever making money off of them. Even if I never made another cent off my blogs, I'd keep doing them. So, if the blog doesn't have a particular function, then why blog? Perhaps it has something in common with the reasons I write in general."
Sarapen
(Halifax, Nova Scotia: Canada)
Jesse de Leon is a student who is researching Filipino bloggers and the construction of identity on these blogs. Sarapen was originally set up to help with the research and as a place to interact with Filipino bloggers. De Leon immigrated from the Philipines to Canada when he was ten years old.
"Who's the Fairest of Them All?"
"And as you may have noticed, this blog is becoming more and more self-indulgent. My titles have continued to be enigmatic, with the in-jokes largely apprehended by only myself. Or look at the subjects of my preceding posts: Zapatismo, anarchism, Japanese comics, free journals, and a short description of what I was watching on tv. Only two of the last ten posts have been on topic, and I've even set up Tangents as a new category to classify posts under (incidentally, I've just realized that as a classifier I'm a lumper and not a splitter). In other words, Sarapen is rapidly becoming about me instead of my research."
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
(USA)
Skippy provides a wild and satirical dash through the American political and cultural landscapes. In the post below, Skippy advises bloggers on how to avoid the mind-rot associated with the isolated-solipsism of fanatical blogging.
"Hello, This is Skippy the Bush Kangaroo for the TBD Association"
"thirdly, make sure you read books. yes, there once was a medium where electrodes firing on a screen refreshed every few milliseconds were not the preferred avenue on which words were placed to be read. grab a physical book, hold it in your hands...you'll notice your eyes don't get as tired. and, while you're reading books, make sure you read history. this will get your gaze out of the collective navel of present times, and help you realize that everything that is happening now has happened before. hopefully, this will make you less agitated about whatever political position you may hold. knowing that every idea has occurred in the past, and worked out pretty well, should lower your blood pressure. also, speaking of sex, have it! often! and we highly recommend using a partner, as well. and then, be sure to have a conversation afterwards. you'll be surprised how reinvigorating and refreshing human contact can be."
Annotated Life
(Midwest/Atlantic/Kentucky: USA)
Annotated Life is a collective blog that posts political, economic and cultural posts from an internationalist socialist perspective. The post below is from Edie.
"Why Blog"
"So let's be realistic. Blogs are inlets and outlets. Blogs are non-profits or infinitesimal business ventures. They are diaries or megaphones for confessions, creative and political expressions, individualism and romance. Blogs are powerful communication and social networking tools. A blog is a place to work through personal thoughts or dilemmas, often seeking the collaboration, understanding, and disinterested friendship of strangers. But beyond these explanations, there is the larger trend. Regardless of the rationale for or content of individual blogs, the act of blogging is representative of a trend toward expression and interaction and discussion beyond established media--even as the governing body and structure of our society constricts against this. The Internet is a medium unparalleled in history for the exercise and transmission of free speech."
Indie Castle
(Oregon, USA)
Indie Castle is a collective blog set up to provide information and motivation for the often ignored/dismissed American independent voter (except right before an election). They are associated with the Independent Voter and are a part the link-up of independents across the country.
"Political blogs are the modern day equivalent of the revolutionary pamphleteers from the very beginning of our nation's history. Nothing more and nothing less."
Emphasis Added
(Seattle, Washington: USA)
Rob Salkowitz is a writer and consultant, one of his regular writing gigs is for the Comic Buyers Guide. He has a wide range of interests, ranging from current politics, to literary and cultural texts, to technology and business.
"When people ask me what I am most proud of about my own blog, it's that I have managed to engage an unusually broad spectrum of readers: those who share my perspective and several who most emphatically do not. I consider it a great accomplishment in this divisive moment to have readers willing to participate in a genuine discussion, and keep coming back."
Implications and Experiences
(Dayton, Ohio: USA)
Gary M is an aspiring photographer and this site collects his erotic photographs and includes engaging commentary. Gary often develops photo-posts that recognize the season/politics of the day.
"Why Blog"
"But the primary reason is that I just love making beautiful images, and I want to share them with people who appreciate them. I also enjoy telling the story of some images, or just simply praising a model for a particularly productive shoot. I also wanted to keep a journal of my experiences, primarily photography related, but sometimes slipping into personal matters. So blogging is a perfect outlet for that. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable for people who search the web looking for "free nekkid ladies" and I've had some misgivings about being a source for that, which is why I've resisted the temptation to pump up traffic just for the sake of traffic. I currently get a modest but steady amount of visitors, which doesn't seem to spike based on the content of a day's image -- I interpret that as meaning the bulk of my traffic is coming from people interested in the art aspect as much or more than the nudity aspect, but who knows really. But I do see the potential of my blog as a promotional tool, and once I get more commercial product available, then it might make sense to start pushing the blog further into the light."
The Loneliest Jukebox
(London, United Kingdom)
Graham Barnfield is an editor of Reconstruction, is programme leader in Journalism at the University of East London and is involved in the online resource MagLab: Magazines Under the Microscope.
"Theories/Practices of Blogging"
"The scope for instant replies, repudiations and resistance became clear. At times I got my retaliation in first, and became more convinced of the potential of blogging, once given a clear focus. My enthusiasm for this potentially democratic development increased and I've continued to blog since. Everyone else was at it, after all. New forms of networking and organisation ran in parallel with the wild predictions about blogging's future. One would be foolish to miss out on these opportunities, but equally foolish to forget that content itself is more important than any particular delivery system for words and ideas."
Foxy Librarian
(USA)
Foxy's tales of working in a library (having worked in libraries and bookstores I know they can be very strange and amusing), with various posts on cultural and social issues.
"I guess I have kept up my blog because it is more like a letter to friends and family than a journal. I blog to amuse my friends and family--my experiences on the job at a large urban library are just too rich and bizarre to keep to myself. Keeping a blog improves my attitude and outlook. Now if anything scary or bizarre or disgusting happens I roll my eyes heavenward and whisper a thank you for the material instead of despairing about the situation. If I slip in a puddle of vomit or I interrupt a man jacking off in the stacks or having a seizure overdose at the internet computers I know I can make a funny or at least interesting story out of it. Blogging regularly is a good mental health and professional exercise, because often on this job if you didn't laugh, as the saying goes, you would cry."
Planet Grenada
(?)
Abdul Hasim's description of his blog: "Islam is at the heart of an emerging global anti-hegemonic culture that combines diasporic and local cultural elements, and blends Arab, Islamic, black and Hispanic factors to generate "a revolutionary black, Asian and Hispanic globalization, with its own dynamic counter-modernity constructed in order to fight global imperialism."
"When it comes to Afro-Latino issues I generally don't talk about music because I feel many people only recognize the musical contributions of Black Latinos and have almost no concept of anything else. I would prefer to talk about Afro-Latinos in politics, literature, science or even sports. Similarly, it is common for Muslims to be viewed through a narrow political lens so I'd rather not talk about Middle Eastern politics, and I'd prefer to talk about Arab/Muslim cultural production (poetry, music, etc.) especially in the West."
Camels Back and Forth
(USA)
Camels Back and Forth is the blog of Allan and Susannity. It is a wide- ranging commentary on cultural, political and social issues. The post below is from Allan and he framed it as a letter to my original question and donated a new term, "whalanol," to my Glossary of Terms for the United States of Amnesia.
"Sit down for this one, it's a double whammy, a real shocker:
With an authoritative tone and a few hyperlinks you can convince a significant number of people that anything, no matter how absurd, is true...
...AND- if you are convincing enough (or not) you WILL be plagiarized ... who woulda guessed?
...as Susanne and others noted in the comments of these posts, there were no 'Whalanol' Google hits before I wrote that obviously bunko post.
I have the rare and dubious honor of inventing something that Google had never previously heard of - if it wasn't for the search-engine singularity of the word 'Whalanol' I would never have known my [crap] was being stolen and passed off as fact.
If it happened once, I imagine it happens all the time, to almost every blogger...I pity the student who turns in a paper that references 'facts' found on my blog!"
Bookmark My Heart
(USA)
Adrienne's blog is a commentary on her reading experiences designed to expand her range of interaction with other readers.
"I have found that the best way to meet like-minded individuals is to post my opinions on what I have read, and invite others to comment on what I've written. There is no better way to learn the opinions of others, than to state your own. Then I find out that I am not alone in not being able to get through that book. Or I get encouragement from someone who made it through. "It does get better," they tell me."
Delagar
(Arkansas, USA)
Delagar is a professor who blogs on professional and personal experiences/interests.
"I blog because, here in the 21st century, America is not the utopian paradise it was supposed to be. Remember that? Do you remember that? We are supposed to be a more perfect union. I was reminding my freshmen of that this morning in class. No, I said to them: No, no, no, no. This is, in fact, America. We are, in fact, supposed to be created equal here. It is not, in fact, all right for us to treat some people as though they were somehow lesser beings--he's not a citizen, so we can torture him? That's an illegal immigrant, so I can do what I want? That's not what we do here. This is America, I told them. That's supposed to mean something! We are meant to have justice here! This is supposed to be the place where everyone is free and equal!"
Reginald Primrose
(Royal Oak, Michigan: USA)
Regi maintains multiple blogs for different interests and needs.
"Blogs have just the potential to enable as BITNET did but the craving masses demand technological advances that empower as well as make the process effortless. My website has sat stagnating for years but when I'm in the mood my blogs cry out to me for my attention. I've got things to talk about, share, use them to be someone in a community of our mutual development. My cultural themed blog, Primrose Path Travelogue, deals with the arts, visual, musical, literature and anything else. My cultural themed blog with an adult flavor, Empowered Sexuality, deals with theatre, film, society etc."
The Feminist Spectator
(Austin, Texas: USA)
Jill Dolan is a writer, teacher and artist whose blog covers "theatre, performance, film, and television, focusing on gender, sexuality, race, other identities and overlaps, and our common humanity. It addresses how the arts shape and reflect our lives; how they participate in civic conversations; and how they serve as a vehicle for social change and a platform for pleasure. It's accessible to anyone committed to the arts’ political meanings."
"Why I Blog: On the Theories and Practices of Feminist Blogging"
"By identifying with or against various characters, framed by new narratives or unique perspectives on old ones, we shape ourselves as acquiescent or resistant to normative (that is, popular or dominating) cultural understandings of what we should be, especially around the identity markings of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, age, and ability. Because of culture’s influence on our selves and our relationships, critical engagement with its meanings is imperative."