A couple of month ago, I quit books*. As time became constrained, it was blogs or books and I chose blogs. Blogs are the most dangerous, entertaining form of reading that I have experienced in a long time. Drama unfolding unedited on the internet? You can't beat true life for craziness.
So I divide my Google Reader up into several sections. I have the biker blogs, the adventurer blogs (some fit into both), the pro athlete blogs, the funny blogs, the crazy life blogs, the great writing blogs, etc. If you write a blog and I read it, I have you pegged my friend, you are nothing more than a category. But then I try to figure out where my own blog would fall. A little part of everything: life, some lame attempts at humor, some really embarrassing attempts at competitive races (those might be considered humorous), a lot of boring posts about biking or hiking or other endeavors, some bad writing, some stories of childhood I should prob just keep to myself, and lots and lots of whining about work, injury, school and other annoyances.
I don't keep it impersonal, but I do hold back what I say (contrary to what you may believe). I say a lot more in my mind. I keep it family friendly, mostly because I think most of my entire blog readership is somehow related to me or friends with me or what not. But when I look at my statcounter, I do see a lot of diversity in my audience. I don't think I have any friends in Beijing, do I? So just like when you are 15 and you trying to figure out what group of kids to sit with in the cafeteria (Could you move up a rung on the social ladder? Would they laugh if you sat with them?), I wonder what you think of me? And no, I don't think blog persona = real persona. We write to be peceived as we want to be perceived, not as we are. I definitely don't tell you every dumb thing I do on a daily basis, just about half of them.
Also, my husband doesn't think I'm that funny. He quotes Wedding Crashers & Dumb and Dumber all day so I think I win.
*That is not to say that I don't read any books, just not regularly. I used to be a HUGE book reader, but then I realized that I had read all good books in the world. Just kidding, only half. I just read a book called 23 Days in July about Lance Armstrong's 6th Tour De France victory. It was a pretty good read actually and I learned my first bit of knowledge about road racing. It is way more complicated than I would have guessed. I got excited as Lance climbed the mountains coming from behind to find out if he would win evening knowing he is now retired with 7 Tour wins.
So I divide my Google Reader up into several sections. I have the biker blogs, the adventurer blogs (some fit into both), the pro athlete blogs, the funny blogs, the crazy life blogs, the great writing blogs, etc. If you write a blog and I read it, I have you pegged my friend, you are nothing more than a category. But then I try to figure out where my own blog would fall. A little part of everything: life, some lame attempts at humor, some really embarrassing attempts at competitive races (those might be considered humorous), a lot of boring posts about biking or hiking or other endeavors, some bad writing, some stories of childhood I should prob just keep to myself, and lots and lots of whining about work, injury, school and other annoyances.
I don't keep it impersonal, but I do hold back what I say (contrary to what you may believe). I say a lot more in my mind. I keep it family friendly, mostly because I think most of my entire blog readership is somehow related to me or friends with me or what not. But when I look at my statcounter, I do see a lot of diversity in my audience. I don't think I have any friends in Beijing, do I? So just like when you are 15 and you trying to figure out what group of kids to sit with in the cafeteria (Could you move up a rung on the social ladder? Would they laugh if you sat with them?), I wonder what you think of me? And no, I don't think blog persona = real persona. We write to be peceived as we want to be perceived, not as we are. I definitely don't tell you every dumb thing I do on a daily basis, just about half of them.
Also, my husband doesn't think I'm that funny. He quotes Wedding Crashers & Dumb and Dumber all day so I think I win.
*That is not to say that I don't read any books, just not regularly. I used to be a HUGE book reader, but then I realized that I had read all good books in the world. Just kidding, only half. I just read a book called 23 Days in July about Lance Armstrong's 6th Tour De France victory. It was a pretty good read actually and I learned my first bit of knowledge about road racing. It is way more complicated than I would have guessed. I got excited as Lance climbed the mountains coming from behind to find out if he would win evening knowing he is now retired with 7 Tour wins.
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3 comments:
Keep us entertained and stop worrying about which table to sit at;) I think you under-rate yourself on the bad writing, everything I've read so far has been great. Just remember that not everyone is from your area so my main reason behind reading all the blogs I can get my hands on is that its other riders stories and what they deal with on their rides. How they race and how we all just love getting out on the trails.
Yeah, I don't really worry about people liking my blog too much, cause I really don't have an agenda. It is just something I do for fun, but I do worry sometimes about revealing too much. Who understands the motivations of "why we blog"? I think it is just a way to connect, and I really love that.
I have the cross-cutting "friends" folder on reader which is just that--blogs of people i know personally.
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