Why We Blog
Blogging is an inherently egotistical endeavor.
While it is true that this singular reality comes in a spectrum of shades and degrees, its validity has never been more apparent than in today's digital culture. Certainly, since its "activist awakening" following the political fall of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in late 2001 and its widespread acceptance by popular culture often attributed to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Elections, the weblog has largely become a media for self-glorifying boilerplate (Fig. 1)(Fig. 2) (Fig. 3). A recent study of web log content conducted by Digital Marketing Services, Inc. for AOL Time-Warner found that over half of all published blogs contained journal-like personal accounts created for the purposes of self-therapy. In stark contrast, only "....16 percent of bloggers do so to pursue journalistic aims, 12 percent blog to break news or advance news and gossip, and eight percent blog to 'expose political information.'" Without discrediting these 'personal' blogs in sweeping puritanical condemnation - for some certainly demonstrate striking application of both prose and wit - it is my hope that this page will be of an altogether different sort.
For the web log holds so much more potential than is utilized by the vast majority of 'personal' bloggers. Ab ovo, the concept of a blog had a simplistic brilliance to it that was as refreshing as it was inspirational. Years of homogeneous stimuli manufactured by overblown media conglomerates had corroded not only the breadth and color of our imaginations, but the very integrity of factual truth. The blog promised a much-needed tonic through a re-empowerment of the individual; the pathways were opened wide to the free exchange of ideas - as brazen as they were diverse - in a scenario that bore striking resemblance to those definitive moments of history in which the suffocating monolith of ignorance and superstition was deconstructed through the ebb and flow of manumitted thought: the grove of Academus in 5th century B.C.E. Athens, Cosimo de' Medici's Accademia in 15th century C.E. Florence or even (what sort!) the Merry Pranksters in their journeys on Further during the 1960's. The noble efforts of innovative blogs further this indispensable historical tradition.
With all of this in mind, our blog strikes a balance between these dichotomies. Its premise - two dear friends in the act of maintaining old, and often absurd, ligatures - is inherently insular, but I can assure you that both its focus and approach are universal. This is a forum in which an exploration of the personal is undertaken through a critical examination of the environments, cultures and ideas of the external world. In any event, I do hope you enjoy...
And now, onto the bookish melee!
While it is true that this singular reality comes in a spectrum of shades and degrees, its validity has never been more apparent than in today's digital culture. Certainly, since its "activist awakening" following the political fall of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in late 2001 and its widespread acceptance by popular culture often attributed to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Elections, the weblog has largely become a media for self-glorifying boilerplate (Fig. 1)(Fig. 2) (Fig. 3). A recent study of web log content conducted by Digital Marketing Services, Inc. for AOL Time-Warner found that over half of all published blogs contained journal-like personal accounts created for the purposes of self-therapy. In stark contrast, only "....16 percent of bloggers do so to pursue journalistic aims, 12 percent blog to break news or advance news and gossip, and eight percent blog to 'expose political information.'" Without discrediting these 'personal' blogs in sweeping puritanical condemnation - for some certainly demonstrate striking application of both prose and wit - it is my hope that this page will be of an altogether different sort.
For the web log holds so much more potential than is utilized by the vast majority of 'personal' bloggers. Ab ovo, the concept of a blog had a simplistic brilliance to it that was as refreshing as it was inspirational. Years of homogeneous stimuli manufactured by overblown media conglomerates had corroded not only the breadth and color of our imaginations, but the very integrity of factual truth. The blog promised a much-needed tonic through a re-empowerment of the individual; the pathways were opened wide to the free exchange of ideas - as brazen as they were diverse - in a scenario that bore striking resemblance to those definitive moments of history in which the suffocating monolith of ignorance and superstition was deconstructed through the ebb and flow of manumitted thought: the grove of Academus in 5th century B.C.E. Athens, Cosimo de' Medici's Accademia in 15th century C.E. Florence or even (what sort!) the Merry Pranksters in their journeys on Further during the 1960's. The noble efforts of innovative blogs further this indispensable historical tradition.
With all of this in mind, our blog strikes a balance between these dichotomies. Its premise - two dear friends in the act of maintaining old, and often absurd, ligatures - is inherently insular, but I can assure you that both its focus and approach are universal. This is a forum in which an exploration of the personal is undertaken through a critical examination of the environments, cultures and ideas of the external world. In any event, I do hope you enjoy...
And now, onto the bookish melee!
posted by Ned at 9:39 PM
3 comments
