Saturday, March 3, 2012

Why do we blog?

I know why I blog, I'm not sure why you blog... maybe you blog for the same reason as me perhaps?

I blog because I am documenting my life. I'm preserving bits and pieces of images and text to show who I was when looking back in a year, two,  or even twenty years. Though it won't be me, it'll be how I chose to represent myself back then, after all every thing on the internet is merely a construction of identity not a perfect reflection of it. Why else does the backspace key exist? Why else would you use the cut tool when editing a vlog? We're telling the world what we want them to know us as and I am no different. Everything is represented as the author intended, not how it happened, though I do try my best never to lie to you in the slightest I hope you don't get offended when you realise that nothing I say is the truth. I fear though I will be the main audience for my thoughts and feelings in the future if my view count on this blog is anything to go by (with the exception of the blog post about otters which is really popular). I know in the future I'll look back and not understand the vague personal references I make, the obscure jokes I make up in reference to people I don't know too well... Everything will be forgotten and mean nothing to even me...

But it's my autobiography.

That's what blogs are really. Autobiographies as they develop. Life as it is remembered. The world as filtered by you.

Every tweet, blog post and status update is another little piece of your online autobiography being preserved for who knows how long on some far off servers that house the record of a thousand people's lives as they unfold. Scattered across a dozen or so websites that rise and fall in popularity over the decades are bits and pieces of your life showing just how you progressed through the teen years and beyond... Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of digital technology where everything can be photographed and recorded in real time for the world to see we are taking more photos of ourselves than previous generations ever did. We're all in the process of documenting our existence extensively. If you were ever to become famous or for any reason someone was to write a book on you they'd look back through the thousands of pages of archived text, photos, audio and videos of you from Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogspot, Livejournal, Google+, Youtube, Emails, and websites that don't even exist yet just to quote that sentence or paragraph that explains what happened nsvk on July 21 2012 (yet to happen as I write this, but I'll try to remember to tweet on that day just so you know) where you were, how you reacted, bits of emotions you can't recall any more... These will be the remnants of your life long past. Snippets and pieces of recorded emotion and nostalgia that, when you read them decades later, spark memories of moments you forgot. It's like some big drama unfolding with rise and falls of relationship, dreams, aspirations, and the posts about how you made it and updates about how now you've got that dream job that keeps you up at night and how tired you are so you don't post more often. Your blogs are you seemingly mundane chronicles through life, each one as unique as you.

This is your life happening one update at a time.

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