Blog-topia: Reflecting on my addiction

So, here's post number one on what is, surprisingly enough, my third blog. When I first started blogging, my addiction hit so immediately I can honestly say that I would probably have spent more time blogging than socializing if I wasn't so fucking embarrassed about it. See, the truth is, I've been one of those quasi-luddite, pen and paper, pretentious shits that denounce the entirety of blog culture as yet another capitalist device for pacifying the masses - leaving them completely socially inept, staring blankly at a computer screen. I also hate msn speak. When I think about it, there is nothing at all offensive about lol-ing, I just view it as a perversion of proper speech. Yes, that's right, proper-middle-class-white-academic speech. Yeah, so I'll work on that.

I guess blog-hatred just seemed like a reasonable extension of my hatred of msn (rendering extinct meaningful, face-to-face contact with your friends and loved ones) television (I own one, covered in dust and a sheet so that it doesn't look at me funny. I watch movies on it about once every 3-6 months), radio (except CJSR/ Guerilla radio if it existed here and CBC - a guilty pleasure, but it just keeps you up to date on those issues that concern white, middle class Canada so effectively), and popular print media (unless I'm deconstructing Cosmo and Maxim, which is a fun thing to do at parties!). In the past year or so, I've discovered, more and more, the radical potential of blogging. It's like an extension of zine culture, but even more accessible because you don't have to worry about print costs, distribution, etc.

Although I'm sure there are some people out there whose blogs range from completely vacuous to offensive, this is by no means universal, or even common. As a matter of fact, I would say that there is almost always some kind of value to be found in people's blogs. What I've found after reading Tess's blog over the past month and exploring other ones, is that they can be cathartic and emotionally beneficial for the writer - helping them sort out their shit, and such. They can also be productive, offering all kinds of grassroots knowledge and advice, much like zine culture, and trading popular knowledge in an accessible way that challenges those hierarchical systems of discourse that seem to permeate mass media. They have the potential to subvert as an organizing tool. When I was randomly performing blog searches, I discovered all kinds of super-cool social movements of varying sizes that I had never heard of, like Femme Affinity Groups (FAGs). It's also a way of sharing experience in a way that allows the person who's sharing to be in complete control of their own representation, and the people learning from that to be able to learn without being an imposition. The knowledge is there by choice, not via some unreasonable expectation of someone to bridge the gap of your own ignorance. Also, it's just a basic writing tool. Stream of consciousness and just getting the words flowing is really helpful. I remember writing papers after I started blogging and immediately feeling my writer's block and that inner critical voice that is paralyzing instead of constructive going away.

Strangers, or people on opposite ends of the earth, or people in the same city who just want to keep up with each other can use blogging as one means of interaction among many. The idea of interaction with strangers, especially, seems to have revolutionary potential just in that it allows us to step outside our own experience and learn/ organize/ revolt with people we might not otherwise be able to network with.

So in conclusion, I heart blogs 4-ever.

By the way, this week my suspicions that American Apparel is not the guilt-free hipster mecca that we may have hoped for were confimed. Read on. It's worse than I imagined.