Dating A Blogger, Reading All About It
from the lines-crossed dept
I've been publishing Techdirt for many years, so I'm quite used to people telling me news about companies, and making it clear "this is not for Techdirt". However, imagine having to go just as far in your personal life? Techdirt is a technology news blog, and I stay away from "personal blogging" other than to illustrate points I'm making. However, with the tremendous growth of personal blogs online, people are discovering that their friends are writing about them online, and not everybody likes it. I think it's a question of boundaries. People seem to be pushing them to see what they can get away with, without realizing what sort of information most people expect to be kept private. Of course, anyone can write what they want, but they need to expect some sort of backlash if they're really publishing such personal information (and opinions) about people they know.
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The ME Generation lives on
Why would anyone want to befriend such self-absorbed and inconsiderate people?
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Re: The ME Generation lives on
"You are SPECIAL"
"You DESERVE the BEST because YOU are number one"
"It doesn't matter WHO you are its WHAT you OWN!"
"Buy this and you WILL BE SPECIAL"
"People don't matter...products matter...consume!"
"It doesn't matter what you do to others...as long as you get what you want"
Look at various ad campaigns and you will see one or more of these messages coming across...and very much like a series of ticks...played fast enough will lose their individual sound and become a tone...the ceaseless blitz loses the individual marketting of such and such product and only the above messages stand out.
That's gotta affect people...and reading articles like this one, I can see that it does.
Self-centeredness as an institution...sigh
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A blog is just like a diary...
But on the flip side, you should have the right to write whatever you want.
Then again, you gotta make sure it's private. Thats why I like LiveJournal. My friend writes there all the time, and I am considered a friend, so I get to see private posts.
But then again, people get pissy over the littlest of things. You can't win!
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A fine line
As a result, I've come to see my weblog as more of a communication medium than a diary. My most personal thoughts remain unpublished, private, and personal, whereas the weblog allows me to share not-so-sensitive thoughts with the world at large (and get feedback as well). It's somewhere between a diary and a newspaper column.
However, even with this format, and even as careful as I've been, there have been a few cases where I've said something that I wouldn't normally have wanted certain people to hear, and it's come back to bite me. There's a price to be paid for being open with your personal thoughts and feelings, even when you're careful about it, and unfortunately that price often takes the form of friends with hurt feelings.
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