Lately, most of my (de)constructive thoughts have been focused at friends and myself (i.e. not my research). This has been soooo energizing. One on one, back and forth (de)constructive conversation. Critical feedback that is pushed directly and returned.
Plus, i’ve been talking to Fernanda frequently about blogging audiences.
This made me think about my own audience. I, better than most, have a deep understanding that my blog is a public presentation of self. And i have an understanding that while the content of this blog is not nearly as focused as my professional blog, my readership overlaps. But, even i, still foolishly imagine a certain level of security through obscurity.
I forget that people might care about my opinion (particularly those who don’t agree with me). It’s terribly odd to me that people might get upset when i take a week off of my opinion rants on Friendster, et. al. I don’t see myself as a public figure and i still view my blog as a space to put out half-chewed ideas and get feedback. Unfortunately, my audience doesn’t seem to agree. ::sigh::
So, my blogs have weirded me out lately. Even this note feeds oddly constructed… i have no idea who the hell is reading this, but i know it will be part of my public archive. And that’s particularly strange since i deconstruct my own blog entries as though they are just another piece of text and i imagine what i must be like from these entries and what an odd picture…
And then there’s interaction. I created the blog for my own records, but i put it out there publicly to engage folks to challenge me or provide me with better resources. Unfortunately, most commenting comes from spam. And the majority of non-spam comes from extreme opinons (or my beloved roommie) so i know that my audience is not represented in commenting land.
So who is my audience? Now? 10 years from now?
Whenever i go into these introspective moods, or try to go meta on myself, i find myself returning to the one-on-one. I always wonder what someone might think of my email archives. All of those highly directed musings, intended for an audience of one. Those interactions are so rich, so full of my confused head, my critical thinking skills, my philosophies, my religious views. I look back to the IMs and emails from this week and i see a reflection of myself. I look to my blog and i’m bored.
But this begs the question. What is it about this medium that doesn’t let me to play through those thoughts? Certainly, there’s the confusion about who my audience is. And the feeling of interactivity. But there’s also the beauty of truly intimate interactions, the feeling of getting to know someone better, of jumping into their psyche, of saying things that no one else hears, of reaching new depths. We’re all vulnerable at those depths.
But blogs do not provide safety for vulnerability. And thus i find myself going meta long before i dive down into the uncertainties that mark a contemplative mind.
Thoughts to chew on… ’cause this blog is still about the innane, the random and the irrelevant.
