Why do people blog?

I awoke recently to discover that everyone on the planet seems to have a blog. While I will admit that my recent retreat into somewhat Luddite territory online has rendered me fairly terrified of social media and the influential power it seems to possess over everything that is seen, heard, written, performed, whispered or belched, the startling notion that everyone wants to put their day-to-day life on display forced me to consider the value of doing just that. And whether I wanted to contribute to what could be described as a pandemic of over-sharing.

I am old enough to remember being an adult before the explosion of the online world that many of us now exist in for more hours of the day than otherwise. Back when people actually spoke the words ‘world wide web’ and ‘information superhighway’ and prefaced URL addresses with ‘double u, double u, double u…’. The idea of writing regularly on a ‘weblog’ that quite likely very few people would see, seemed like a silly idea. It was literally a virtual diary. I mean, why bother? Just go out and buy a pink unicorn-decorated fabric-lined notebook with a flimsy plastic lock like the rest of the world and keep your entries on how cheap your husband is or how annoying your three-your-old is to yourself. The idea of blabbing on and on about what was going on in my life before some kind of unseen audience seemed self-important and frankly boring. Who would want to read about my hangnails and baby’s diaper rashes when they had hangnails and baby’s diaper rashes of their own?

Although many early blogs rose to popularity because of controversial content (remember Dooce.com? The author got fired after writing about some of her co-workers. If that happened today, they’d just return the favor. Or maybe remove their LinkedIn recommendations….), and what I would consider ‘online editorials or journalistic content written by professional writers who get paid for it’ are sometimes referred to as blogs, the sheer number of people writing their own personal blogs, contributing to personal blog sites or tweeting, instagramming, vlogging and whatever the hell else you can turn into a verb these days online makes me feel…..overwhelmed.

Why do people blog?

Certainly human nature is somewhat narcissistic. We crave attention, and if we are intimidated by actual physical attention, even the most introverted of us can appreciate the idea of being….appreciated. It’s nice to know there are others out there who ‘like’ you, understand you or just give a damn about anything going on in your humble, mundane little life. (“Wow, she loves armadillos? I thought I was the only one!”)

And, what was once merely a way to post droll pictures to illustrate the bad humor of your cat, increasingly CAN also make a you rich and famous (see previous cat reference) or at least enhance your salary on the side. Get enough followers and you can make a tidy sum from advertising. Get enough rapid fans and you can create an online revolution or a book that debuts on the New York Times bestseller list.

As someone, who long ago, made a living as a writer (of sorts), the idea of making money using an instantaneous publishing machine seems commonsense. And yet, the sheer volume of content that floats out in the solar system of the internet makes wading through the space junk  somewhat exhausting and painful. I’m not quite sure I want to be another ‘mom with a blog’ who recounts the antics of her precocious and snarky kiddos in list form (‘Top Ten Ways to Distract Your Children When Attempting to Have Sex with Your Husband’) while dealing with the realities of approaching middle-age disappointments with copious amounts of Starbucks lattes and glasses of chardonnay (I want to DO that, but I’m not sure I want to broadcast it).

Like everyone else, I want to be different.

As I am writing this post on my blog, I am either a hypocrite or attempting to make peace with the idea that perhaps blogging CAN be an art form – it can contain well-crafted pieces of illuminating elegance on the human condition. It can be a reflection of one’s inner tormented soul with a word count. It can be thoroughly spell-checked and grammatically correct.

A blog is merely as eloquent and artistic as its author.

Top Four Reasons Why I Hate Blog List Posts

I hate blog lists. Well, let me be more specific – I’m not talking about funny or sarcastic lists – I’m talking about sincere and earnest inventories of advice written by amateur authors on any number of arbitrary subjects that you find when you Google phrases like ‘Most Lucrative Ways to Earn a Living as a Writer’ or ‘Why Does My Heart Feel Weird?’ or ‘Will I Ever Find Love?’ (I MAY or may not have Googled all those phrases.) If you have a problem, chances are, there is a blog list out there with 20 of the top ways to fix it.

Reason #4: They Make Everyone an Expert

Anyone with a mission and access to WordPress can now spout their wisdom about whatever they want – from the proper technique for making water balloons to serious advice on relationships and child rearing. No matter your level of expertise or qualifications, for some reason, if you write a list of helpful hints on a topic, people will read it as the gospel. You could be a psychotically disturbed prisoner typing on a felt-covered keyboard from the corner of your padded cell, but if I see your name (which happens to be ‘LoveyMom68’) attached to a list of the ‘Top 20 Ways to De-stress After a Vacation With Your Kids’, I’m going to believe you know what you’re talking about.

Reason #3: They Assume the Reader is a Complete Moron

Look, I’m sure many of the lists that are posted out there include some valuable information. Stuff that could actually help me become a better wife, mother, etc…..well, if I was really interested in doing that.  But, when I make the effort to click on a list titled “Best 15 Ways to Prepare Your Children for School this Fall” only to read that #12 is ‘Pack a nutritious lunch’- um, I feel a bit patronized. Especially when #8 is ‘Make sure they’re wearing pants.’

Reason #2: Sometimes, I Don’t Agree With Them.

This one is related to Reason #5 in that when you have a lot of different types of people giving their opinions on how to do things, you wind up with a lot of different opinions. Opinions that work their way into lists on the internet that other people read and perhaps follow. Perhaps UNWISELY follow. I do read lists that I don’t personally agree with, which is fine, but when I start thinking about people who may be basing their actions – sometimes actions with consequences – on these blogged lists of bad advice, I get very annoyed. They make me want to track down the author and demand a retraction.  Well, almost. I’m very lazy.

Reason #1: They Contribute to the Dumbing Down of America

So, here’s where I turn into a pretentious preachy asshole. I understand no one has any time these days between jobs and families and responsibilities and the veritable onslaught of social media sites that seem to multiple faster than you can download the apps for them. Numbered lists and bullet points make for easier reading, especially online. We can scan through a list much more quickly than a long drawn out number of paragraphs and move onto the next list or sound bite or Vine video or animated meme or kitten photo or Facebook post or Twitter feed. But, sometimes I worry about the continued diminishing state of our knowledge-gathering and retention skills that get lost in the process. Unless it’s strictly for entertainment purposes, maybe gleaning advice from blog lists is a poor substitute for investing the time in finding real answers to your problems. Like talking to your loved ones. Or researching career options through an online university. Or taking a class on investment banking. Or maybe long-term cognitive therapy.

I’m So Vain; I Probably Think This Post is About Me

Recently, I divulged to a friend that I had undergone a cosmetic procedure several years ago, a secret that I had only revealed to a small group of inner circle confidantes.

She shrugged, seemingly not fazed in the least by my confession. “Well, you’ve always been vain,” she commented casually.

Naturally, I was taken aback by her remark, not to mention a bit hurt. I did not think of myself as vain. Vain people, especially women, are villainous, self-obsessed and narcissistic – willing to stop at nothing to maintain their physical appearance, even if it means killing close family members that rival their own beauty. (See Snow White and possibly many other fairy tales…) Certainly I was no two dimensional cartoon character, but the exchange forced me to examine my own thoughts on what it meant to be proud versus conceited and where that line was drawn.

Like most little girls, my ideas on beauty came initially from my mother, who would drag me and my sisters to Macy’s and spend what seemed like hours trying on lipsticks and being up sold on eye shadow quads while my sisters and I languished at the Clinique counter playing with that weird slate/slide thing that determines your skin type. (“OK, now move it to ‘Tans, Never Burns’….) My mother wasn’t much of a clothes horse, but her sense of self was absolutely linked to how much eyeliner she was wearing.

She never split hairs (pun intended) when it came to her ideas on beauty and passing them along to me. She gave me a tutorial on shaving my legs when I was ten and advised me at the age of 11 that I ‘might want to do something about that mustache’.  For years, we bonded during bleaching sessions in the bathroom. In fifth grade, when I was first allowed to wear eye shadow for a birthday party, I clawed through the powdery old cosmetic bag of my mother’s left over makeup past the mauves and beiges to pull out a slightly cracked baby blue shadow single. I smeared it over my lids keeping them half closed throughout the entire party which made me alluring but dangerous, as it was difficult to see in what direction I was roller skating.

Though some might disagree with the approach, I eventually came to terms with my mother demonstrating a preference for a certain level of artifice. Her lesson was: whatever your definition of beauty, it’s achievable with the right tools. And, certainly looks were not valued over intelligence or other internal qualities. I didn’t have to be smart OR pretty. I could be both.

Unfortunately, I was soon after hit by a debilitating and crippling illness that ravished my looks, emotional well-being and outlook on life.  Adolescence. The killer of confidence and deliverer of doubts. As I watched many of my friends blossom into lady shaped flowers while I remained a tiny scrawny weed, my insecurities mounted and my identity as an emerging woman took a hit. I was teased and told I looked like a boy.  I was called “Sweetchuck”, which apparently is a character from the Police Academy movies that I must have resembled because we all know how accurate teenage taunts are. Middle school is rough but it gets even rougher when you hear the phrase ‘The Young and the Chestless’ echoing through the hall and you know it’s directed at you.

It took some time, hormone surges and training bras to get me back in the saddle of feeling good about myself again. But, as I began to maneuver my way through my early twenties, I discovered what a little eyeliner and lip gloss could do and fell back on my mother’s training. I never rolled out of bed in the morning looking great, but I always had a plan on how to get there. I liked the feeling of ‘suiting up’ to look good and in turn looking good made me feel more put-together, more powerful, smarter, funnier, cooler, sexier.

At the risk of sounding horribly politically incorrect, I have to admit that I take a lot of pleasure in making myself look pretty – or whatever my interpretation of pretty is, I guess. I enjoy dressing up and being told my hair looks good and catching a glimpse of myself in a mirrored store front and liking what I see.  I go to the gym and skip carbs mostly to stay trim, I wear sunscreen religiously to avoid wrinkles and make-up is my crack and Sephora my crack den. I work hard to make sure that my inside is as pretty as my outside, but they are both areas of pride. Whether that makes me vain is up to you.

This year I will turn 40 and no one needs to tell me that being an aging woman in this country brings its own unique set of anxieties and insecurities.  We all know our society is obsessed with youth and I struggle with an evolving sense of what looking good in an age-appropriate way is for me.  I’m no super model. I have cellulite and fine lines and bunions. I certainly don’t want to dress like I’m 25 anymore. But I do want to look as good as I can for as long as I can. Which I’m hoping to do for the rest of my life.