Think. Every night or morning in that quiet private time you cherish, you sit and think and form something cogent that you feel warrants some kind of preservation, so you write it down, labor over it, edit, change tenses, search dictionaries for that exact, right word.
And you craft this piece by your hand and find a way to duplicate it, print it by the thousands and while the ink dries you heft the reams of your cogent thinking to the streets and staple the fiche to billboards, phone poles, door stoops. You put them under windshield wipers of parked cars, bicycle baskets of delivery boys, on the free newspaper racks at delis, corner stores, gas stations. You leave stacks in hospitals, old folks homes, community centers. Maybe you even nail one to the door of a church.
And you go home and wonder right up until the point where cogent thought stirs your hand again.
I was getting my hair cut when one barber said to the other something about reading a blog.
"A what?" Said the other.
"You know, a blog."
"But I don't. What does that mean, 'blog?'"
"It's on the 'net, on the web."
My tongue was bleeding. You need to understand the context here, because when I say "barber" all kinds of stereotypes jump to mind, but these guys, and I respect them dearly (my barber especially who makes me look badass), are in their 20s. This is not geriatric ignorance here.
I chimed in. "It's a contraction, the word 'blog.' Comes from 'web' and 'log,' kind of like you're logging on the web. This was called a weblog, which eventually got shortened to 'blog.'"
And that's when I drew the looks from everyone else in the barbershop, a look I've become accustomed to. Nobody like a smart ass, especially in a barbershop. The musing then went to types of blogs that are out there, topics from gum, to mountain biking, to lesbians. And of course, at that point, we weren't talking about blogs anymore.
But everyone else is.
Getting a clear picture of the size of the blogosphere is difficult. WordPress has statistics for both WordPress.com (15.1 million blogs and counting) and self-hosted WordPress installations (17.4 million active installations), which gives part of the picture.
There are more than 10 million tumblogs on Tumblr. Blogger doesn’t offer any public statistics on how many blogs they host. Technorati is currently tracking more than 1.2 million blogs. And there are likely millions of other blogs out there hosted on other services like Movable Type, TypePad, Expression Engine, and other CMSs.
Conservatively, it would probably be safe to assume that there are over a hundred million active blogs out there. And more blogs are being created every day. A lot of people have multiple blogs, and plan to create more. And there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of blogs out there that have been abandoned by their creators due to a lack of interest (or a lack of traffic).
I have 27. Three of which are personal blogs, one a place where only I and extraordinarily trusted individuals go, and the rest are for my classes. We're on one of them right now. I read a few blogs, one with regularity. I subscribe to them. I read blogs about blogging, metablogs, I guess. I just made up a word.
A far cry from ink and papyrus, but with the same devotion and conviction as Martin Luther. And who knows? Maybe Moses was a blogger, the Ten Posts.
Chime in. Tells us what you think. How has new media pushed the printed word?
My opinion has been for awhile now that new media, and the internet more generally, are great intellectual equalizers. In the same way that a gun provides anyone with a means for defense or offense regardless their physical fitness, new media allows anyone to find and proliferate knowledge regardless their economic affluence or their geographic location. That being said, blogs seem like the logical conclusion, a sort of intellectual commons comparable to the cafes of Victorian England and France.
ReplyDeleteSure there are forums, but blogs have a better method of recording a statement, rather than just facilitating discussion. I think that new media represents a larger movement toward the ability for anyone to proliferate opinions and knowledge, and that the acceptance of society acts as the sieve that keeps the worst elements from flowing.
I like to think that colleges have been the best way for people to acquire new ideas and to learn, but if the proliferation of ideas leads to innovation then the internet is rapidly replacing the university.
Granted, there are some people posting ignorant or asinine things online, but if I could get away from that in the university I would be on better terms with several of my classmates and professors. The benefit of the internet is that it allows one to post their observations regardless of their affluence, and that way political, socio-economic and geographic contexts can proliferate to places they previously couldn't.
But now I'm rambling.
P.S. "my barber especially who makes me look badass" Is among the coolest things I've ever seen on a professors classroom blog.
To begin with actual verbal conversations and phone calls are becoming less and less because our thoughts can be sent out through texting, email, facebook, and blogging. New media has pushed for this move from verbal communication to communication via the printed word. Just like with everything this has been good and bad. I think this push for the printed word is hurting society by getting away from the verbal word. Also, because people now post conversations, which would normally be said through a verbal conversation, online through facebook and blogs I think we are receiving a lot of TMI. Like Taylor said people post a lot of ignorant and stupid things online.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand because of this push of the written word we can easily find ANYTHING we want to know about. I love finding blogs about how to do or fix things, or blogs on what is wrong with this, or simply blogs about topics I am interested in. Blogs also keep us informed with what is going on in people’s lives. One of my friends just found out he had cancer. His daughter started a blog to keep us all informed of what’s going on, what doctors are saying, what treatments he needs and how they are working. Not only is this beneficial to those of us who are concerned and want to be kept up to date, but it saves the family hundreds of phone calls wanting to be updated. This guys daughter said she hated all the phone calls and going places and being inundated with everyone asking about her dad. She loved everyone’s concern but… She can send everyone to the blog and keep us all informed as quickly as she is informed. Blogs also make it nice to be able to post your findings and experiences back for other people to use. My dad has repaired or replaced just about everything on his car by using information from blogs. This has made fixing his vehicle cheaper and quicker because he didn’t have to keep driving the 45 minutes to St. George to talk to mechanics and buy parts. Also it made him feel great to say he fixed his own car.
It is quicker to text and post on facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. When you are on facebook you can easily catch up your whole friends list on what you have been up to lately with a stroke of a key vs. having to call or even text them individually. This aspect alone has pushed the printed word along.
New media like Smartphone’s and ipads have sent the printed word through the roof now that we can write on facebook, blogs, email and twitter from virtually anywhere. A generic cell phone only lets you type so many characters to get a point across. But Smartphone’s and newer media devices enable you to write out your complete thought as well as have access to the internet to post it.
I have a real love/hate relationship with the social media printed word. I absolutely love blogs and how you can you can inform so many people at once with just one letter – a free letter at that. It is instant and doesn’t cost a stamp to send. Or in the case of someone who has a readership in the thousands, that would be quite a costly mailing, not to mention the cost of envelopes, paper, copy ink – as well as the time involved to stuff all of those envelopes. Blogging has simplified things beyond measure in!
ReplyDeleteI love being able to find people’s advice or thoughts in just about anything I am interested in. But oh how I wish all people would take some thought about what types of things “warrants some kind of preservation, so you write it down, labor over it, editing, changing tenses, searching dictionaries for that exact, right word”, as Eric wrote the his first paragraph of this post. The picture Eric chose to illustrate the possible importance of blog posting depicted the words of Martin Luther – whose words have continued to influence the world for 1500 years! While so many postings do have deep and profound meanings, others can be helpful for a short time (such as how to fix my plumbing or a cooking recipe.) But too many social media postings can also be dangerous. Students planning school shootings or on a simpler level (but sometimes just as dangerous) is where the next party will be held that drugs, alcohol and sex will be flowing. Blogs on how to make bombs or the easiest way to commit suicide.
I also miss the days when someone would write something just to me personally. Blogging reminds me of the generic Christmas letter. While I am not at all opposed to that type of Christmas letter (who has time to write two pages to everyone they know?), I feel along the way we have somewhere lost each other. So many people don’t even take the time to sign their name anymore. It is all just photocopied (or blogged.) Most people I know can’t even bother to pick up the phone and place a call to hear a voice – texting has replaced that. Instead of the feeling of a cheering or soothing voice, I now get text messages full of shortcuts, typos, spelling errors and sentences in all lowercase letters that make me feel that I don’t warrant importance of more than 7 seconds of the sender’s time. What horrifies me even more is that employers are now communicating with employees this way. Boyfriends are texting girlfriends, children to their parents.
It was not too long ago that I saw a post on Facebook where the 20-something year old daughter of a friend of mine wrote her mom’s Facebook page “Mom, I love you but you absolutely suck at texting.” So she had to write that on Facebook? She couldn’t just tell her mom something like that in person, or at least over the phone? This tells me that the daughter is the one who sucks at communication, not the mother!! What happened to hearing a voice? I have even received text messages telling me that someone has died. Social media has replaced social graces. People just don’t know how to talk to each other anymore. Technology has taken us forward, but at the same time I feel it is turning people into uncaring creatures. Next time someone I love passes away, please can I have a caring hug or at the very minimum a phone call with a caring voice. I am tired of 7 second blips. I am so glad that Martin Luther has not been around to witness what has happened to the almighty powerful word!
New media is the new printed word! Sounds like the announcer at the last H & M fashion show, as though new media was something that can trend as easily as tight pants and emo hair.
ReplyDeleteI say that, however, it's true. I look on my iPhone and in the books section I see a plethora of full university textbooks, complete with video lecture, photos, diagrams, and anything else I might need to teach myself how to "Build a Better Birdhouse" or "Engineer the Future Through Technology". If that wears me out I can flip open my GQ Magazine, which is free as yes, I do actually pay for some printed materials. If that doesn't fulfill a deeper need, I can always turn to scriptures or the art of zen by the Dhali Lama... all digital copies that I can read and 'swipe' page to page.
Yes there is a great smell to a newly printed newspaper, magazine, or book that won't come with downloading the digital copy instead of owning the printed version.... however, I'm sure with time there will be an app for that anyways. Will it still be Scratch and Sniff or will it be App and Scratch? App and Sniff?
Regardless of the changes to come, instead of fearing the death of print one should look forward to the excitement of the authors that will be able to come forward as the need to be established with a major printing house no longer is necessary. I think that's the modern day Martin Luther version of making ones voice and opinions heard.
As for me, I say bring on the technology... just make sure to include a way for me to see the centerfolds...er..... I mean articles, correctly.
For centuries our first amendment right of freedom of the press has required just that... A press. New thoughts and ideas have been left to the gatekeepers, the press owners, the publicly significant. Those who had the means to convey the ideas of the affluent.
ReplyDeleteCould it be that society has recognized that great ideas only come from the wealthy and therefore, only the wealth have great ideas. I am dumb because I am poor? Am I poor because I am dumb? Individual ideas are not insignificant, they just need an audience.
I'm amazed at how a simple assignment to create a blog in a communications class has given me a global voice. Views of my blog from around the world. Thats crazy.
Are there others out there yearning for my voice to be heard? Could blogger have given me my own printing press and with world distribution. I wonder what cause driven leaders in history would have given to have the opportunity I have to reach a such a vast audience.
Maybe after years of my belief in person insignificance, I still let the prominent dictate the ideas of society. Keeping the greatest message hidden. Mine.
As I sat in a writing class while the instructor discussed the amount of texting teenagers do, I had an epiphany—many kids are writing more now than ever, especially when compared to previous generations. True, face-to-face interactive skills sometimes suffer, as does outdoor recreational activities, yet more people are writing more. And that’s not even taking blogs into consideration.
ReplyDeleteHumans seem to have an innate need to leave behind a written record, either in the form of advice to following generations, or made-up stories, or even just a “Dear Diary” entry of what transpired today. Maybe what we really want is something others may stubble on that says, “I was here. My life mattered.”
Technology and new media have made this possible for almost everyone. When the printing press was first developed, you could only take advantage of it if you owned a printing press or if you paid the person who owned it to print something for you. Now anyone can write and publish their writing via the Internet, for the whole wide world to see. Or for nobody to see—sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s read by others or not. Sometimes it’s just about the act of writing it down and putting it out there. And you don’t even have to own a computer anymore than you have to own your own website. It’s about as free as it can get.
And, in my humble opinion, people are taking advantage of this at an unprecedented rate. And, also in my humble opinion, this is good. Very good. So go write something—anything. Let the world know you were here.