In the new frontier of the internet, is
blogging worthwhile? For me the Holy Grail and goal of creating your own blog
is in the attempt to bring it to the level of a healthy and thriving community.
In its truest form, capable of being a public forum that will be capable of
shaking off any burdens and any parasitic existences that latch onto it. This
is my search to find merit in blogging.
As
of May 2014 there were around 1.4 million blogs around the internet, soon after
that anyone capable of trying to keep count couldn’t keep up. As far as the
personal frontier of the internet goes, there aren’t many spaces bigger or more
foreboding than that. This is what I find to be the main difference between
social media and blogging.
I feel Social Media can more or less be
considered to fall under the umbrella term of networking. Your space is very
clearly defined, as well are all of the connections you make. But blogging is
another monster entirely, at least to me. My metaphor for it, social media is
the pre-fabrication of the internet. You set up your e-dentity within the
blocked off area assigned to you, and you connect and expand starting with the
people you know. There are some similarities there to blogging, if you can get
your friends active on it, great.
But
while I consider social media as a sort of pre-fab, a blog is something you
have to build and maintain from the ground up, a build project that can go
beyond any of your expectations given the right set of circumstances. You start
with an essentially blank slate, a canvas, an empty piece of paper, an open
creative space, and you start it by essentially picking a random spot on the
internet and hoping someone notices you, praying even if you require that kind
of validation. Social media is something that can be effortless given enough
free time, but a blog takes effort and work.
Not
many people build the house they plan to live in, it is much the same for our
spaces on the internet. Blogging is hard, that is the very bottom line if you
plan to get anything worthwhile out of the experience. If you want a blog to
flourish, you must painstakingly craft it to be a valid space for the community
you wish to build.
Build it well, and lay a foundation of
truth, a space built out of lies will only become another diseased space that
harbors trolls. It will be up to you to make sure your bridges stay un-tolled
by such trolls. You need to be a bit gruff, I would consider it the only
positive metaphor in comparing someone to a goat if they are capable of keeping
trolls at bay
.
In the end your blog is your castle, your
kingdom, and this is in whatever form it may take. It will be your bastion in
the wider wild world of the internet. If you are serious in your endeavor then
you will form connections between other communities, potentially even making
enemies along the way. This is as modern as the age of empires gets in the
information era. You will take what ground you can, as you try and raise your
flag in this ever expanding world.
Because it inhabits the gray space in the
internet, there are some who use blogs as a means of truth and expression. Such
blogs exist in places where the political climate is oppressive and there are
no other means in their mass media. Such blogs are potentially capable of
becoming a higher truth, something necessary in this world.
Can
I build a castle, a kingdom? Will it reach the heights I would desire? In the
end, is it worth it. . .
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