Can You Be Yourself Online?
It’s been over a year since I started this blog thing. Something I’ve been thinking about for some time now is how to be myself online. This is a personal blog but it is in a very public forum. It’s my blog so I can say anything I want. I can speak my mind. I can tell the world what I think. But the question is, “Should I?”
The problem is my social circles are relatively small and my friends/aquaintences are probably the most influencial factors in what’s going on in my life. In other words, most of my blog content comes from how you, the reader, are effecting affecting me in the real world. Here’s a quick example. If I say, “A friend of mine recently purchased a firetruck on an online auction.” 95% of my readership knows exactly who I’m talking about.
If I document my thoughts and feelings that involve another person, then all of sudden I’m held responsible for bringing them into the public arena. As a given, I never want to say anything that resembles slander or gossip, but healthy disagreement and debate is often so taboo these days — people tend to take disagreement with ideas or actions as a personal attack. Whether it’s in agreement or disagreement, any time you write about someone it has the potential of effecting the relationship. It can also effect your blog. A good example of this I saw recently was when a guy proclaimed his love for his new girlfriend on his blog. Then they broke up. All the entries about how great she was disappeared and new ones about how much love sucks appeared. Well, then they got back together again so all THOSE entries disappeared and new ones about how great she is showed up again. (See? There I go again.)
Maybe it’s just my writing style. How can I communicate my thoughts without mentioning other people — usually in a personal example? Will that improve or deminish the delivery of the idea that I’m trying to deal with? Would that turn something that everyone can relate to into something with as much personality as a text book? Am I just not thinking creatively enough about this?
Has anyone else out there run into this yet? How are you dealing with it? Feel free to speak your mind.
January 30th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
You’re scaring me, Fresh. I may give up blogging now.
January 30th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
I would like to effect change in your word usage without affecting our relationship.
http://www.sparknotes.com/writing/style/topic_9.html
January 30th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Is this Donna?
Thanks that’s a grate sight. I’m sure I will prophet from it.
January 31st, 2006 at 7:32 am
Only the spirit of Donna working through me to make the world a a better place.
January 31st, 2006 at 7:37 am
Doh! I even stutter on line!
January 31st, 2006 at 7:53 am
But seriously, in thinking about this a bit, I’d say that if your top priority is being yourself, then it may be better to buy a diary. Publishing to the Web is really no different than publishing a book. If you were to write and publish a book that turned out to be an expose and aired your friends’ laundry, you would expect to pay a price for that.
In this situation, you have two competing goods or values. First you have the value of honest expression, being true to your thought, opinions, rants, etc. Some of which people probably need to hear (at least in some context, if not on a blog). Second, you have the value of not hurting or embarrassing your friends, family, dog, or whoever might be the target of a post.
For me, I’m going to give the second value the priority unless there is sufficient reason to allow the free expression value to trump it. In evaluating, I’d go back to the second greatest command and try to determine which is the more loving thing to do.
To post, or not to post: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The pain of silence,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
blogging a friend? To post: to vent;
No more; …
January 31st, 2006 at 11:46 am
Austin Powers
February 1st, 2006 at 12:08 am
Good questions. I tend to bounce back and forth between a few models that define a framework for my writing:
Model #1: The short story. Although this may seem personal, it’s closer to fiction, as it is very contrived and does not enter into deep, personal feelings. It’s usually going somewhere, to share a story, make a point, or be humorous. Negativity here would just be a distraction from the story.
Model #2: Pulling back the curtains and sharing a struggle. This is definitely more personal and real, but if I have anything negative to say, I carefully wrap it within a blanket of anonymity. No need to name names, as the other person is not the point of the matter, but rather myself, and how I am dealing with it. It’s being very transparent, sharing a problem I am going through, and how I am trying to grow through the struggle.
Model #3: Persuasive essay. Here I are going over something important to me, and laying out the reasons for why I feel the way I do. This is where I play the lawyer in the courtroom, and being negative would just turn people away from the point I am trying to make.
I’m sure there are other models, but those my approach to blogging. As Eric said, we have restraints to moderate any negativity: (1) We’re Christians, (2) we’re adults and (3) this is a published work
But what about the case of the on-again-off-again girlfriend relationship? That raises a good question, because I myself, as you know, have changed / grown / evolved / stumbled / everything in the past 3 years. Particularly in the past 6 months. I wrote some things awhile ago that I may not write now. And yet, I choose not to remove them, because they reflect a very real facet of life: we are growing beings. “That is who I was then, this is who I am now”. And this goes back to a core principle of mine: transparency. I think that makes for a much better blog. Sure, we all have ugly thoughts, and there are boundaries to what you share. But sometimes it’s very freeing to share a struggle, question, or discovery you are going through. And since there is nothing new under the sun, odds are most readers have already been through the struggles you go through, or will do so sometime in the future. I’ve been amazed at how appreciative people are of that.
One other thing: forget what your high-school teacher told you about sentance fragments. She was wrong. Way wrong. Really.