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So I've had a weblog for a couple of years. To start with, no-one read it, no-one knew who I was. It was very personal. Angsty dear-diary stuff. Then, I told a couple of friends, which I wanted to. I wrote less angst, but was still personal. Then, I ended up in the Guardian (newspaper), and people I hadn't heard from for years got in touch. So I wrote less private stuff. I've been semi-stalked by an old college friend who appears to have become utterly obsessed with me.
Obviously, it's up to me what exactly I say. No-one's standing over me with a whip (more's the pity), so I have total personal choice. The grey area between personal/private and political/public is what interests me anyway. How public are our personas on the web? Is my web persona the same as the real me? What's a secret, exactly? How intimate can you be online? Is there a value in a "fictionalised reality"?
Of course lots of what I write on my weblog is what I think of cinema/theatre/books/new web technology, so it's not all worthy philosphy, believe me.
Last summer, long story, but I ended up telling my family about the weblog, which was the right thing to do. My siblings became a little obsessed with it, for a short while, but my parents only got wired in the last few months (my blog being a prime motivator), and now they read it every day.
Last week, a friend of my parents, who is also the aunt of an old college friend of mine, and the biggest gossip known to the twentyfirst century, was at a large social gathering of my family's, and told everyone (and I mean everyone) there about my weblog in about twenty minutes flat.
My traffic's gone up, but I haven't written anything for a week. Sure, I choose to write and share and publish, but somehow, now it feels like
everyone in the place I grew up, and everyone I've ever met, is reading it, and not in a good way. They're reading it because they think I'm a little bohemian/strange and they want proof.
As I once heard Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen say about those horrid house changing programmes and what motivates the audience: "it's all in the reveal".
People want personal. Gossip. Celebrity lives (not that I have one). But why do I feel strange now all my parents' friends have asked me about it? Knowing that online anyone can find you, why do I mind 50 or so middle-aged northerners reading? And why do I suddenly feel shy?
What do you think?
This thread idea brought to you, taking the lead from Flowers, on something I amy or may not have once said... |
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