November 27, 2001

2:06 AM

I've been reading Amanda's blog for about a month, since I accidentally discovered it. It's awful, enthralling, crude and very real. It reminds me of how important blogs can be to those who write them from the despair and confinement of their surroundings. And not only to sociologists. I'd linked to her before in a comment somewhere, but I now think she's worth a thread of her own. As y2karl remarked at the time you couldn't make this stuff up.
posted by MiguelCardoso to general weblog-related at 2:06 AM (48 comments total)

Just a quick off the cuff, for which I am justifiably reviled all over the INTARNET, but the quick scan I did of her blog felt uncomfortably like reading someone's private diary, which I guess it actually is. Still, it made me feel a little uncomfortable, somehow. And bored, to be honest.

Went to computer graphics I hate that fuckin class. It goes sooo slow and the teacher is stupid. Now I'm home my chores are done and I'm bored and sleepy.

I agree that you couldn't make this stuff up, but, no offense to Amanda herself, why would anyone bother?

That's not unnecessarily harsh is it? Perhaps because I deal with teenagers both in age and mindset every day at my job, I find this less than compelling.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:51 AM on November 27, 2001

She's bored and sleepy. I get it. Surf on.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:09 AM on November 27, 2001

Can I put in a vote for not using MeTa as a weblog review board? The 'General Weblog-Related' category should be about meta-weblog stuff, I'd suggest: talking about weblogs in general, not about any one in particular. There are plenty of other places that review or announce weblogs, and I'm sure they're always open to suggestions for new ones to discuss. With a few thousand of us hanging around here every day, any trend towards specific threads devoted to individual blogs would soon swamp the place.

That said, if this thread was refocussed on the question of the psychological importance or non-importance of online-diary-keeping, using Amanda's as simply an example, then I'd be fine with that. So, not a 'thread of her own' for Amanda (can I have my own thread? Can I? Pleeeease?), but a thread about using blogs/journals in the same way as Amanda does.
posted by rory at 3:59 AM on November 27, 2001

Agreed.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:16 AM on November 27, 2001

Note (that I hope won't hijack the thread) : I didn't know about blogyou, and found the MeFi review amusing.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:24 AM on November 27, 2001

if this thread was refocussed on the question of the psychological importance or non-importance of online-diary-keeping, using Amanda's as simply an example, then I'd be fine with that.

That was my intention, rory and stavrosthewonderchicken. It seems to me if there wasn't a blog she could keep - and just a physical diary she knew nobody could read - she'd probably feel even worse.
It's just that, as I'm only a poor Portuguese fisherman, with no experience of English, apart from what I've read on sardine tins...

*ducks*

Or is the opposite: that blog-keeping encourages one to seem more pissed-off than one actually is? I'm a diary-freak and am used to reading them long after their writers have died. It's fascinating that the illusion of being public[wot Baudrillard and Vatimo sed]actually affects self-expression to such a remarkable degree.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:28 AM on November 27, 2001

I think that's very true, and the whole bloggy thing, argue as people do about what 'blog' really is, is fascinating. The ease with which people who are at least at a minimum level of wealth (which, lest we forget is pretty high) can post their thoughts for all us other reasonably rich folks to read, us reasonably rich folks all over the goddamn planet...it boggles and excites me.

It's all about me, don't forget!

At the risk of descending into banality (as I am wont to do), what is happening in blogspace these days is what I was so excited about back in the early nineties when I first discovered the net - people, voices, shouting out their dreams and fears and loves and hopes into the void, organically connecting into a human network that could transcend parochialism and ignorance, if not language. I used to jump up and down talking to people who had no idea that it was even possible to connect two computers together, preaching that the world was going to change, that humanity was on the threshold of a leap in consciousness the likes of which hadn't been seen since Gutenburg, by golly!

'Course the whole moneyhungry 400-page Wired magazine, corporate 'huh whassat?!' net.boom derailed the dream a bit. But the web is ours, comrades, and we're taking it back, blog by blog!

What was I talking about again?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:50 AM on November 27, 2001

It seems to me if there wasn't a blog she could keep - and just a physical diary she knew nobody could read - she'd probably feel even worse.

I'm not so sure about that (while acknowledging that I haven't followed her journal). Diary-keeping can be therapeutic, I know - kept one myself for ten years or so - but does it have to be public to fill that therapeutic role? Do you mean that it's a cry for help, and that you suspect that she hopes that her family or others close to her will find it; or that the feedback she gets from strangers will be therapeutic; or just that the very act of exposing her innermost thoughts and fears in public, whether or not anyone actually reads them, is good for her? That last point is what I suspect you mean, Miguel, and I'm not sure that I agree.

Point of comparison: the author of one of my favourite journal-type blogs has just posted about her blog being discovered by her mother, and speculated about what that will do to her writing. (The comments on that post are interesting, too.) Best line: 'This blog thing is getting harder every day, or rather every time I find out someone I know is reading this.'

We can all be brutally honest about ourselves if we figure we're effectively anonymous; it's much harder when we aren't. It gave me pause a couple of months back to learn that my parents were reading my weblog, even though I always wrote consciously for a/the public when I was doing it. I'm not sure why it mattered; maybe just that sense that something you say could come back to haunt you in a relationship that matters.

It's a question worth exploring more than I have time to in a short comment... there must be more and more cases of people being bitten by the downside of blogging, of building up a fairly comprehensive picture of themselves online... although it's nothing new to blogging, of course; these are old net-related questions.

I do wonder how many of the teen-angst journallers have thought through the potential pitfalls of writing their diaries online. Things were safer in the days when it was all dumped into a notebook, and I'm not sure that writing on paper was any less therapeutic.
posted by rory at 6:05 AM on November 27, 2001

Hey Mum, I told you to stop reading!

What a well written blog, rory! I guess I'm probably being too romantic, imagining repressed teenagers in their shuttered rooms sending out their messages of fear and trembling, unsuspected by those who are sleeping in the next room, and being less alienated because they imagine someone, somewhere, in similar circumstances, could be reading and learning or, at the very least, identifying.
Still, it's amazing that we can be discussing these persons' blogs, without their knowing, in real time and in different parts of the world. More than amazing. Gutenberg? Don't even mention that innefective clown!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:36 AM on November 27, 2001

There's something sublime, though, about entries like this:

Spent all day cleaning again I've been up since early this morning. I had to go to the bank get some bling bling then go to k-mart and get some stuff or my mom. Came home cleaned forever. Then went to the vet to get some flea stuff for tyson and monkeyface.

posted by Karl at 6:53 AM on November 27, 2001

LOL Time Warner! I smell a new Sitcom!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:56 AM on November 27, 2001

And, regarding the recent meteor showers:

I didn't see the meteor thingy last night cause the sky is gay and was cloudy.

Then later:

OH shit I watched the blair midgett project that me, bryce, lizzy, lisa and bobby made last year. It's sooooooo fucking hilarious. We went to midget ville and midgets came after us and I dropped the camcorder while everyone is screaming as the midget is chasing the car then it just goes to a blank screen. Later in the movie it has me slapping Bryce in the face and playing red light beat down lol everytime its a red light we all beat the shit out of Bryce. Who by the way came over today. I didn't talk to him and he didn't talk to me. He was just like did you get taller? Im like no. And that was the end of it and he went home.

I'm addicted. Thanks Miguel!
posted by Karl at 7:04 AM on November 27, 2001

Thank you for the link to blogyou, and some interesting comments on blogs/journals in general. I'm also fascinated by them -- enough so to try and start one (reality check: it's harder than it looks to write an interesting one).

Rory -- I suspect the fact that it's public can make a diary *more* therapeutic -- or detrimental. I suppose it could be very helpful for a person if they found, through an online journal, that others understand/are supportive
of their particular problems and issues. On the other hand, who wants a diary that bites back with critical comments?

Paper is certainly safer, but who says safer is better?






posted by Badmichelle at 8:32 AM on November 27, 2001

Umm.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:47 AM on November 27, 2001

Point of Clarification?

This weekend someone posted a weblog link to the front page of MeFi. The thread had 4 or so comments before it was deleted; two were from Rebecca Blood stating "Please, no more weblog links!" and then a clarification, "There's a section in MeTa to do it."

So where can cool weblogs (am not saying this is one) be noted at the MeFi Network? I think outright excluding them, simply because they are weblogs, is rather silly -- weblogs are a large part of Meta culture.
posted by jennak at 8:47 AM on November 27, 2001

I suppose it could be very helpful for a person if they found, through an online journal, that others understand/are supportive of their particular problems and issues.

Yes, but that same kind of support and understanding used to be available on Usenet at places like alt.angst and the like, without having to reveal all about yourself in a highly personal individual site. I agree that some of the readers of a personal blog will get to know you better than they would if you were part of a newsgroup crowd... or maybe not, since you'll be part of a blog crowd anyway. Hmm.

On the other hand, who wants a diary that bites back with critical comments?

This is certainly one of my concerns. A lot of people feel pretty uncertain of themselves in their mid-teens, and some can't just shrug off criticism as easily as they'll be able to as an adult; I know I used to take things a lot harder then than I would now.

Paper is certainly safer, but who says safer is better?

It depends on the context. Now that I'm in my 30s I have no desire to keep a 'safe' paper diary, and when I'm in one of my blogging phases (not right now) I really don't care who reads it (comments about my parents finding it notwithstanding; that was just a surprise, as it always is when people from one part of your life cross into another). I don't care who reads it because it's intended to be public, and is written accordingly.

Compare that, though, to writing 'my brother comes home now he's not doing ecstacy but he's fucking selling it!!!' in a livejournal intended to be 'private' or at most 'semi-public'... I can imagine all sorts of ways posting this could turn around and bite the author. Yes, it's honest, yes, it makes compelling reading - because it's not 'safe' - but writing that in public isn't necessarily in her best interests.

There is an alternative: writing fiction. But as we saw earlier this year, that carries its own risks in the weblogging world.
posted by rory at 9:20 AM on November 27, 2001

Funny, when I checked it out when you posted it last time, Miguel, it struck me as inane, manipulative, and FALSE. As such, I feel no desire whatsoever to revisit it.

To each his own. :)
posted by rushmc at 9:25 AM on November 27, 2001

This weekend someone posted a weblog link to the front page of MeFi. The thread had 4 or so comments before it was deleted; two were from Rebecca Blood stating "Please, no more weblog links!" and then a clarification, "There's a section in MeTa to do it."

Okay; first, my opinion is just one of 12500, and this comment, like those above, is just my two cents. My opinion obviously differs from those who said to go to MeTa to post weblog recommendations. But I suggest that neither MeFi nor MeTa is an appropriate place to start a thread devoted solely to plugging one particular weblog. Every now and then a thread emerges that gives people the chance to list their faves, and we get it all out of our system; but either MeFi or MeTa would suffer if they began filling up with threads saying 'Hey, I like X!' I know it's tempting at times, but then so is self-linking on the front page, and I'm suggesting that we should resist the former temptation in the same way that we resist the latter; there's just too many weblogs, and too many of us.

Besides, imagine if you were the writer of said weblog, and you discovered a MeTa thread talking about your blog (and therefore you) in unfavourable terms? Not much fun.

I think outright excluding them, simply because they are weblogs, is rather silly -- weblogs are a large part of Meta culture.

Of course they are, and of course we can mention them in passing in a thread's comments when appropriate. But as far as starting new threads goes, I honestly think it's better to keep it at a general level. Otherwise, don't be surprised if you get a pile of responses saying 'It's a weblog. There are hundreds of thousands of weblogs. Surf on.'
posted by rory at 9:28 AM on November 27, 2001

I was like god shut up so i can watch the fucking movie
posted by y2karl at 9:32 AM on November 27, 2001

jennak, if something is really amazing, I think putting it on metafilter is fine. For what it's worth, I just thought the post on saturday was a goofy, nonsensical looking site that wasn't funny and didn't have any good content, so I axed it. It was just a bunch of wacky colors and an image of some guy looking dorky. Is that what makes a good site these days?

Unfortunately, this diary/blog thing does not seem interesting at all, and people would trash it on a thread. I suppose you could mention it in MetaTalk if it's so-so like this one.

Miguel, this one comes off as just another angsty teenager bitching about the world, what's special about her situation?
posted by mathowie at 9:56 AM on November 27, 2001

Not that either of these weblogs should have their own threads; just wanted to know if there is an absolute, "no-weblogs links" rule in place at MeFi or MeTa.
posted by jennak at 10:22 AM on November 27, 2001

just another angsty teenager bitching about the world

Yes it is. But there's something Salingeresque there - the descriptions, the selfish weaving of everything into such a limited self and set of words - which, when you read it daily, has a repetitive hook. She also has an integrity about her; no mood swings; no compromise; no alleviation...
Or perhaps she reminds me of that woman that drove the school bus in South Park. Anyway, it's probably a newbie thing. I still marvel at the fact that some closeted teenager can have her meanderings read and criticized by the world. By MetaFilter.. By Matt even. The web! Boy oh boy oh boy. Never become blasé about it. Gutenberg was an amateur, a rich man's boy. I remember someone asking whether she knew about her traffic. Apparently not. So you can still feel ignored!
It's all about catharsis. But in this particular case, with no pretension to coolness and an absolute disregard for readers, it seems to work very well.
I wish Freud were alive. He would have approved of weblogs. So would Lacan - meaning he wouldn't even have to meet his analysands. Wouldn't have had to invent the 5-minute session that brought about his clinical downfall. Heaven! Or at least interesting.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:58 AM on November 27, 2001

does it really matter if sigmund fraud would have approved?
posted by moz at 11:03 AM on November 27, 2001

Yes it is. But there's something Salingeresque there...

Ahh, you just cleared up the mystery about why I hated it so. Thanks. :)
posted by rushmc at 12:38 PM on November 27, 2001

George Kotolaris: You'll have to scroll down to read the paragraph under George and Pansy, and sad to say, the link there is busted, I'd love to read that story. In my long non-career of temping and slacking, I've worked in a few title offices and ran across and collected pages of the diaries he kept on title deeds. He was a street person-- crazy, lived with his mom all his life and they crashed every wake, wedding, and party in town for years, snapping pictures and getting them developed. His diary was so personal yet so anonymous... Anyway, that's what Amanda's blog reminded me of when Miguel first showed it to us, and that's what another writer friend said to me when I showed him George's stuff: You couldn't make this stuff if you tried.

Which is what most blogs seems like to me. Now iii, which was the first one I saw, seems like the Platonic ideal to me still-- and not because he has a link to my show, but because he's interested in things that interest me.

( And I didn't even figure out it was a blog until I had a well, duh revelation about it last week. I just found it running drylongso through Google to see if anyone had linked it: it's a southern black idiom that means everyday, ordinary, salt of the earth and I got it from listening to delta blues and then reading the Gwaltney book. I didn't know about all the other books and movies that use it for a title... But then I have a 4th cousin from Buffalo who has my name for a domain name. ::grrr:: )

iii has intellectual content plus you can read the type.

Amanda and the others linked remind me of Geroge's diary.
It is so real and painful to read.

I am a human being: nothing is foreign to my nature.

Terence

But that doesn't necessarily include Flash animation or geeky raptures about new code.

By the way, my new MetaFilter tag:

Portal of Bert is Evil
posted by y2karl at 1:36 PM on November 27, 2001

I am a human being: nothing human can be alien to me.

Terence

Another bad quote--shouldn't have left the book in the bathroom. Carole Anne is gonna kill me for sure...
posted by y2karl at 1:44 PM on November 27, 2001

Carole Anne is gonna kill me for sure...

y2karl: Not if you learn to spell my first name without an "e"!
posted by Carol Anne at 2:39 PM on November 27, 2001

y2karl: Are you sure it wasn't the insufferable hack Maya Angelou that owns that quote? Or was she paraphrasing?
posted by Karl at 2:51 PM on November 27, 2001

Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto.

--Terence
posted by rodii at 3:22 PM on November 27, 2001

Twenty-six translations of Terence (Publius Terentius Afer).
posted by Carol Anne at 3:57 PM on November 27, 2001

That's all good and everything, but from the website:

"I am human," Angelou said, quoting from her own work, "and nothing human can be alien to me."

Is she quoting a quote? Plagarizing? Immensely Overrated?
posted by Karl at 9:42 PM on November 27, 2001

Who farted?

--Terence
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:45 PM on November 27, 2001

When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.

Cyril Connolly

Can't I get gushy without everybody beating up on me?

And slapping me across the face with the dead fish of Maya Angelou, Karl? You, sir, are not worhy of my name.

I demand satisfaction. Let us have our seconds arrange the details.

And you. Stavros, shouldn't you be slurping down some dog soup, you cur?

ps. Sorry, Carol Anne, a friend's name, force of habit, nearblindness, yadda yadda




posted by y2karl at 12:29 AM on November 28, 2001

Angelou is a fair poet at best.
posted by clavdivs at 8:13 AM on November 28, 2001

Yeah but she rises.
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:02 AM on November 28, 2001

To what?
posted by mattpfeff at 9:10 AM on November 28, 2001

Still, she rises.
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:13 AM on November 28, 2001

No, like bread.
posted by rodii at 9:15 AM on November 28, 2001

No, like bread.
posted by rodii at 9:16 AM on November 28, 2001

Damn you.
posted by rodii at 9:18 AM on November 28, 2001

Damn you.
posted by mattpfeff at 9:28 AM on November 28, 2001

Not fair – Wretched.

Well intentioned, important to many.
Wretched poet, bad influence.
God, that inaugural poem...::shudder::
I Know Why The Caged Bird Cannot Read
posted by y2karl at 2:21 PM on November 28, 2001

I kind of like Maya Angelou.
posted by Kafkaesque at 2:43 PM on November 28, 2001

::makes mental note::
posted by y2karl at 7:28 PM on November 28, 2001

Remember that when I'm up for a federal post one day.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:37 PM on November 28, 2001

May the road rise with you, K.

Provided, of course, the road is made out of Angelouphalt.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:53 AM on November 29, 2001

y2karl: Amen, brother! MA is one of the worst dreckmeisters in the business, IMO. Well intentioned, sincere to the point of being humourless, and utterly devoid of talent. (Man, it feels good to get that off my chest!)

Stavros: are you drunk again?
posted by sennoma at 4:34 AM on November 29, 2001

Don't know about Maya Angelou on-line, but Teen Girls [Are] More Likely to Be Cyber-Schizoid. Who is Amanda? Perhaps, it's even who are Amanda?
posted by Carol Anne at 6:33 AM on November 29, 2001