Blogging?

We’ve been talking about blogging during the lectures and I started to think why people actually blog. The main idea of course, is to share thoughts, ideas and opinions but blogging can also be used as a “tool” to affect other people’s views or to advertise something. The Internet provides a new space to share these kinds of things, and enables millions of people to see the texts and material that a blogger posts.

But why is blogging so popular nowadays? As a non-blogger it’s hard for me to see the reasons for the growing appeal of blogging. Maybe it’s the opportunity to be heard or just a way to express ones point of view on life. This depends surely on the blogger and maybe on the sex as well. I’m definite that I’d get a lot of different answers if I asked a group of bloggers why do they actually blog. For example female fashion bloggers would probably say that they want to give advice and to be seen whereas male bloggers would want to share opinions. This, however, is a stereotypical assumption.

There’s a variety of blogs and every blogger has their own subject and motivation for writing. Blogs can for example concern hobbies, political ideas, music, religious views, fashion, travelling, arts etc. The list is endless and I’ve even come across a blog that dealt with cheating – so everything is possible in the world of blogging. The common assumption is that blogs are gendered; we expect female bloggers to have a fashion blog or a diary-like blog that reveals their dreams and hopes and tells about their lives in general. Male bloggers, however, are expected to blog about sports, computer games and that kind of things.

It is true that blogs seem to be gendered, but how can we know? Writing online is so anonymous that it’s hard to tell if a blog is written by a man or a woman. Even though a blog would contain a lot of pictures of the hypothetical writer, you’d never know if the writer really is who she or he claims to be. One exception, however, is if the blogger has become a celebrity because of the blogging –then you’d know (for example Perez Hilton). Regardless of the gender-related expectations of blogging, there are some exceptions as well: for example a boy blogging about fashion or a girl writing a blog about gaming. Refreshing, isn’t it!?

I’ve never been into blogging but I do read other peoples blogs. I just don’t want to have a blog because it’s just a strange thought for me that for example people that I don’t know would be able to read my thoughts and ideas and then comment on them. Plus I’d probably be the worst blogger ever, because I’d never remember to write anything. I think it’s just better for me to stick to Facebook and write a couple of short statuses per week and share them with people I know. That’s more natural for me –the whole world won’t see my ideas. Maybe I’m a different kind of girl because I don’t want to blog?