Blogging Off

The Village Voice: Features: The Essay: Blogging Off by Whitney Pastorek

Found this article through, what else, namtsao’s blog. While the first 4 points didn’t impress me much, I was, shall I say, touched? By point #5.

I am no longer getting work done. I am not sleeping enough or eating enough or editing my barely solvent literary magazine, because the aforementioned issues have made it a social imperative that I check up on all the goddamn blogs every single day (and make comments) so that people know I care about their lives/band/Cond?Nast.Additionally, I must Google my own name on a weekly basis in search of mentions on blogs, in order to know What People Think About Me. This is a dark, paranoid enterprise, capable of destroying even the staunchest feelings of self-confidence if the search should turn up evidence that, say, someone who actually showed up at my literary event did not enjoy it, or that someone has posted incriminating pictures of me, pictures obviously taken by a cell phone when I wasn’t looking. (Remember: It isn’t paranoia if they really are blogging about you.)

Fortunately, most of the friends around me (like, those who are at least in the same state/province/country as me) are not bloggers. Or if they were, they have kept that fact from me for good reasons. I think if I got to choose again, I would like to make my website an anonymous one. So while I do not suffer from blog-paranoia, I have found quite a few blog-related symptomes that are slowly creeping up on me.

1. I think I’ve begun to talk to myself in public.
2. I’ve become paranoid of pissing people off on my blog.
3. I hate how people read my blog and ask me in person how I feel.
4. I hate how people assume they know me by my writing.
5. I actually care about comment count.
6. I spend hours peeking into other people’s lives while my own passes by.
7. I know more about people I’ve never met than people who give me real hugs.
8. People who don’t know me know more about me than people who know me.
9. I don’t even know who you are.

Current Listening: Linkin Park – 1stp Klosr

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