Blogging has allowed a growing multitude to express themselves in many new and exciting ways. Personal publishing gives the common man a voice with which they can, in some way or another, change the world.
However, being realistic, we all know that's not entirely true. Besides some more well known bloggers, most of the blogging community is filled with losers. Losers that tell you all about themselves. If you compiled all the LiveJournal, Blogger, and Xanga blogs into one book, it would be incredibly large and even more boring.
There's a former roommate of mine - who will remain nameless - whose blog I read on occasion. I ask myself "why?" every time I finish the page. Mind you, it's not why am I reading this? it's more of a why the fuck would you post something that damned pathetic? First off, a page filled with diatribes on how you drink too much and how your life sucks is not a weblog. It's a call for help. Secondly, the highlight of your day should not be the fact that the high school "bicycle" let you know that she wanted to ask you out. Considering she's "asked out" plenty of other guys, it doesn't make you special. If it did, I'd be up for a "Breathing Air with Excellence" award.
I'm not posting this to bad mouth this aforementioned fellow. It happens that his blog signifies everything right and wrong with the web. I personally feel that you shouldn't read about how "life sucks" or "this person/that person hates me" or be exposed to the countless spelling and grammatical errors on the web (I hope this is error-free) but you can - if you have imagination and squint a little - derive a little comedy and drama by listening on what Joe Everyman has to say. Even if it's sad or just pathetic, it can still be interesting.
Bloggers have been credited with breaking stories before the mainstream press (I've sort of done that. ) and have been credited with a change in social interaction. I tend to ignore that, considering with any new widespread technology, there will always be some form of change in our social network and in the manner in which we communicate. I feel that those that just talk about their lives (however boring they may be) are doing something much more innovative than those breaking news stories. By posting about plebeian life, they are not only giving themselves some meaning, but they are adding to the growing social network of the internet.
