A Fly on the Wall

I vaguely remember a time when speaking about websites—especially of the social-networking variety—was culturally considered, in poor taste. Whenever the word MySpace or Friendster came up, I could hear a collective groan amongst my friends. And meeting people from the internet? No way. That was still mega lame. Oh, how 2002 that was.

Now it seems like the virtual world has nuzzled itself into reality like toast crumbs in the corners of a corduroy couch—a sign of simple comfort. As I type this a friend is going on a date with a girl she just met on Craigslist. And a different friend has a similar date set up in the future. I was on a walk a few days ago and I heard an old grandma talking on her cellphone in her car about FaceBook. I eavesdropped on a conversation between two dudes at the gym about the random MySpace messages they’ve been getting lately. And I’ve sat around computers with friends multiple times—watching videos, browsing friends’ profile pages together, that it feels pretty close to natural to pull out one’s “personal” computer and share it with an audience.

But two things happened recently that have me really chewing on my relationship to the internet (and let’s face it; we’re pretty tight).
I have fallen into the YouTube Vlogging abyss and I read, probably, the most poignant piece written about blogging in The New York Times Magazine.

It tells the tale of Emily Gould and her rise and fall through the blogosphere. If you know anything about Gawker, or blogging, or really anything about writing in the least—you’ll find the piece interesting.

I can’t help but relate to a few of her experiences about putting pieces of her heart and soul online. Except the obvious, obscene difference… uhh, I’m not a mega-giant blog star. That girl rakes in over 300 comments when she posts bits about her life (not to mention over 1200 to the story itself). Which brings me to another difference.

I’ve traditionally been of the school that thinks personal blogs are boring and too self-absorbed. I didn’t want to do that. Who could possibly care about the details of my life? With this blog over the past year or so, I’ve aimed to cover food topics in a divergent, analytical way, sprinkled with a few food-news scoops whenever I can find them.

Reading her story, along with being introduced to video-blogging, has me questioning my old-school thinking… personal details into people’s normal lives are SUPER interesting! While my partner was gone for a month I’d watch hours of totally pointless videos of people just talking about plain, boring, everyday topics. But I’m not sure where to go from here… why is it interesting? Does this make me a voyeur? Or—worse—vain for possibly blabbing more personal anecdotes?

At the root of all this are questions of creative expression, and what motivates one to reveal the most intimate details of their lives. Gould’s answer is:

I think most people who maintain blogs are doing it for some of the same reasons I do: they like the idea that there’s a place where a record of their existence is kept — a house with an always-open door where people who are looking for you can check on you, compare notes with you and tell you what they think of you.

I half agree with that statement. I haven’t totally made up my mind on the barrage of issues she addresses in the piece, but I see personal writing as one of the most direct ways of sharing and connecting to the world at large. And when you’re Emily Gould, that world can be, well, pretty friggin large.

UPDATE: My partner has been back for a week, and my desire for vlogs has diminished ten fold. My desire to blog about food has also returned to its previous levels.

-Catherine