1. Because our biographers will appreciate it. What I had for breakfast, what the boss said today, what I thought about timeless classics like Nacho Libre -- this is the sort of thing my biographer will want to know. They may not be the most impressive of actions but they are chapters in this adventure story I call life. In days of old we heard tales of heroic deeds and great individuals who changed the course of history. Now we hear Jewel singing about brushing her teeth and putting the cap back on. A blog, gift that it is, is a legacy no less than a set of memoirs. You can find them in antique stores, estate sales, attics and basements: old scrapbooks, diaries, letters, and photo albums. We've been doing this sort of thing for years.
2. Because we are alone. I do not know my real neighbors, I don't see my family much, and I have few close friends. At least that's what the much touted American Sociological Review study about social isolation suggests. Blogging is a way to be with others, virtual if not real communities, which themselves are few and far between. Rather than suffer from depression, shyness or social anxiety disorder as a result of living in isolation, we blog. Indeed, some write blogs as if they were personal ads or part of an online dating service. "I like moonlit walks and extra foam on my cappuccino." The interactions that occur between strangers on and between blogs can be just as awkward as a blind date. Blogs encourage the development of small, short-lived virtual communities, something about as elaborate as the local chapter of a fan club for a minor celebrity. Interactions may be not much more than "what's up with that" and "remember the time" but it's nice to know someone is out there.
3. Because the public sphere doesn't exist anymore. Although people can voice opinions practically anywhere, especially on the Web, there are few places to be heard. Freedom of speech is a noble thing, it's true, but the first amendment says nothing about having an audience or experiencing true dialog with others. Blog posts may be "viewable by the world (public)" but they are not so viewed, thankfully. (If you want to hide something well, put it in plain sight, on your blog.) Wanted: more people who actually read these things. Bloggers still yearn for the communities that have been laid to waste by the Industrial Revolution, the Interstate system, the Internet, and other forms of historical progress.
4. Because mass marketing does not work. How irritating it is to watch commercials for products you do not and will never buy. Advertisers, on behalf of corporate interests, helped develop magazines, radio, television, and more recently the Web so that they could sell large numbers of products and make a profit. We are so desensitized to generic and irrelevant appeals in commercials that major broadcast media are in crisis. Enter blogs and their promise of narrowcasting: have people voluntarily give you their interests in the form of tags, posts, books, videos, design templates, etc. and then, one day, match advertisements to the person or even the moment!
5. Because writing is therapy. With the average size of an American single family home now over 2300 square feet and the ease with which people fill these spaces with purchases on credit, it is not surprising that many books have been published lately on the subject of "decluttering" and simplifying your life. Some blogs are horrifyingly cluttered, like overflowing shopping carts. Many, though, are attractive and inviting, like zen gardens. A place for everything, everything in its place. Building a blog can be a way to find peace and order in a hectic world. It can be a way to put things together that seem separate, a pathway to deeper understanding, a catalyst for transformation and new perspectives, a way to find psychic fulfillment and, in general, achieve psychological wellness. It can also be a form of catharsis similar to binging and purging. Either way, composing a blog entry can help one be more composed.
6. Because I am a unique individual, just like everyone else. Even though thousands of people look, think and act like I do (some of them respond to "my" name), I like to think that I am one of a kind, occupying a distinct place in time and space and a unique blog domain, if nothing else. Nietzsche talks about how solemnly humans take themselves and their intellects, "as though the world's axis turned within [them]." He continues, "But if we could communicate with the gnat, we would learn that he likewise flies through the air with the same solemnity, that he feels the flying center of the universe within himself." Thanks perhaps to the forces of mass media, public education and consumer capitalism, most gnats are quite similar actually; they are virtual clones. Sure, some like one television show, sports team, or musician better than another, but they have the same things to say on their blogs.
7. Because it's a guilty pleasure. We are supposed to be working or maybe socializing with those around us, but instead we succumb to voyeurism, peeping into other people's private lives, or exhibitionism, confessing secrets to and sharing files with strangers. By day we are ordinary people; by night we are 2CoolChick or Chris666, saying and doing all the things we can't say to our real neighbors, friends and family. Unshackled from our repressions and the burden of social appropriateness, bloggers can run like mad animals through back alleys. Aside from the excesses of fantasy and role-playing and other possible perversions, blogging is habit-forming and therefore potentially addictive. True bloggers need a fix the way a smoker needs a cigarette break. Some public places, schools, have already banned blogging, I'm sure.
8. Because we can prove our innocence. In an era of intensified surveillance, domestic spying and entirely justified paranoia, there is reason to show that you are relatively (though never completely) "normal" and that you, therefore, have nothing to hide. Confess your sins to the world and you will be forgiven. Although there may be some deviance involved in blogging, we must show that we respect the law in principle and have nothing to do with criminals and other "haters of freedom." Instead of uploading and downloading music or plagiarizing, for example, we provide links to Amazon. Blogs offer anonymity cloaks, but we never know what evidence "they" are collecting on us. Best play it safe. Most of cultural norms, if not FCC regulations and copyright restrictions, are tacitly enforced in the blogosphere.
9. Because the publishing world is out of touch. If I were to write an article or a story and send it to a magazine or book publisher, it would sit with thousands of others in a slush pile. There would be little or no chance of it being seen by anyone but an editorial assistant whose job it is to stuff things back in envelopes. Big editors are like Hollywood movie producers; they say they want something fresh and new but when money is on the line they are afraid to take risks. They keep pumping out similar products because people bought them in the past. Genres become increasingly formulaic as old wine is poured into new bottles. Small editors tend to be idiosyncratic and at times prisoner to the conceits of their tiny audiences. Whoever they are no longer matters to me, the blogger. I write and publish before you can buy a stamp. Rise up, writers of the world, and join the self-publishing revolution. Instant gratification.
10. Because I could win. Nothing is more apple pie than competition. With blogs I compete in at least two respects. First I compete for attention just as all people do with Facebook, MySpace and the whole of the Internet. I try to win an unofficial popularity contest by talking about certain things, forming relationships with other bloggers, exchanging favors, adding people to my "neighborhood," using certain tags, being intentionally provocative to get people to comment, etc. Second I compete for the American Dream. My paper clip could buy me a house; my blog could be featured somewhere or made into a book, making me rich and famous. Of course, the blog world has its own star system with its established and aspiring celebrities, around which the rest of us orbit. The free market system is driven by such enterprising individuals who, lest we forget, earn their successes through hard work and natural talent, not luck. Only the fittest survive, so maybe you should invest a little more time in your blog.
11. Because I was here. In the words of the renown poet Leonard Nimoy, "Now is our precious time to blossom, to be." Pages that do not change are like rocks and bones. Blogs live; they respond to the pulses of organic matter. The blogger grabs onto each moment, no matter how seemingly trivial, because this too shall pass. Everything is important for a day (blog entries are like mayflies) but then it's yesterday's news, bumped down and eventually off the front page. The life span of information keeps shrinking, not to mention the length of attention spans. Feeds are updated every few minutes and even this seems slow sometimes. Who has time to read anything but the headline anyway? Bloggers no less than anyone else are motivated by carpe diem but, with the ever increasing pace of daily life, they sometimes seize the minute.
12. Because I am Narcissus. In Ovid's words, "On a hot day Narcissus bent down to drink from a clear, silvery pool. As he drank he saw a beautiful image in the pool. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. He tried to kiss and embrace it -- encouraged because he saw the other raising his lips to meet Narcissus' own -- but couldn't. Yet Narcissus could do nothing else." What a silvery pool this computer screen is. Let's not talk about how the story ends.
13. Because we are geeks. With opposable thumbs and a passion for things, humans have invented truly wondrous tools and toys. It's enough to be near, let alone to possess some of the new electronic gadgets. They are pure art forms: technology for technology's sake. Conspicuous consumers accessorize with these expensive devices to show how much disposable income they have. People in the middle classes, however, feel they must put them to good use -- at least for awhile -- to justify the upfront costs and sizable monthly bills. The world will not end if you do not post to your blog with your mobile device in the next few minutes, but let's pretend it will. Otherwise we might seem greedy and wasteful, swept along with the latest fads and manufactured tastes, and all the worst of consumerism.
14. Because we are absurdists. Rome is burning and still we play our violins. With energy costs, climate change, war, debt, overpopulation, poverty, AIDS, corporate downsizing, terrorism and a hundred other signs of the apocalypse, it seems strange to be blogging, even if you are writing about the end of the world or are writing to save it. Blogging can be a way to confront reality and even change it, but more typically it is an escape, a flight rather than a fight response. The magnitude of some of these problems turns bloggers into Don Quixote either way. There is also the absurdity of thinking that blogs and related technologies are a form of social interaction that is equivalent to "real life" interaction. Statistically, most blog posts are not seen, read or commented on and yet people continue to write them. If a blogger posts in a forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? Who cares, says the absurdist, talking to herself.
15. Because I am a collector. Even before iPods and eBay, people collected things, identifying the qualities of their favorites, putting them in boxes and categories, and then stashing them away, all the while developing specialized knowledge and expertise. Some wear their collections as a necklace to distinguish themselves from others and to assemble something of a personality. Others are bonafide connoisseurs, developing mastery over otherwise trivial details and refining their taste to include the best that has been thought and said. At one of the spectrum are simple hedonists who feel they need only say "I like this" or "I hate that" in response to sensory impulses and at the other end are great critics and commentators. Collectors, whether high, middle or low brow, like to share their collections, for which blogs are custom designed. Some bloggers share music collections in the form of playlists, which ironically may include "The Collector" by NIN: "I pick things up, I am a collector, And things, well things, they tend to accumulate"
16. Because the essay tradition survives. Even after years of terrible writing instruction in schools, amazingly some people still like writing essays, but they no longer use the word for which Montaigne is so famous. Originally the essay was "an attempt," an often very personal and at times self indulgent exercise in self exploration and discovery. "My sole aim is to reveal myself; and I may be different tomorrow if some new lesson changes me. I have no authority to exact belief, nor do I desire it, for I do not feel myself to be well enough instructed to instruct others." Montaigne speaks of bloggers hundreds of years before they came into existence.
17. Because we have skills. The job market, let's be honest, leaves something to be desired. Jobs are either so dumbed down and monotonous that they require little of what we can offer as human beings, or they are so specialized that they do not relate to the rest of our lives or the world at large. To make matters worse or make them better, it is unclear, schools do not prepare us for the jobs in which we may find ourselves most of our waking hours on earth. On the one hand, it is a good thing that we are literate enough to know some Shakespeare, biology and geometry; on the other, what do we do with the knowledge we have but cannot use at work? Many people have out of necessity divided their lives: either it is work or it is not work. "Not work" may mean "things I want to do but for which I will never receive compensation" or play, which is usually accompanied by regression to childhood toys, habits and fantasies. Some get hooked on anime, others ride ATVs, and still others play computer games. That these pastimes, hobbies and obsessions begin to resemble work does not matter as long as we are not being paid. And that's what blogging is about: doing fun work for free. 18. Because we still believe in democracy. The facts of corruption and greed in government are plainly visible to anyone who looks. Because or in spite of this, most of us value the privileges of citizenship in a democratic society, the rights if not the responsibilities. Although it seems politicians seldom represent anyone's interests but their own and those who fund their campaigns, we want to be part of the political process. Each blog post is a small vote for something: an expression of will. These votes are much richer than the quick polls you find on many websites or in election booths, for that matter. If one day these blog-votes were counted, we could hear the true voice of the "people." It may not be pretty.
People dance around a clock tower while listening to their iPods. Video documents a flash mob style project, features an original soundtrack, and shows how small-town, midwestern college students reacted to a small-scale sociological experiment. More information at visual rhetoric seminar blog.
Later it was discovered that MTV was doing something called iDance and that another group had performed a similar experiment in Liverpool.
