Why write a Blog?

GQ.

I don’t have an answer. I couldn’t be bothered to set one up. I don’t have the time (to put into a blog).

People want to write and share themselves. I only read one blog – my tango teacher writes a blog for dance teachers and I find it insightful.

I’ve created a few blogs here and there but found that my attention waned after a few weeks or a couple dozen posts. The only thing I’ve been able to do consistently is write reviews, mostly for books and comic books. So I do intend to start a new blog sometime soon, where I will post these reviews.

As to why I write the reviews, I find that sometimes my memory of things is faulty and instead of going back and rereading the entire book, my review could serve as a reminder of what the book was about, what themes resonated particularly strongly with me, etc. If someone comes across my blog and comments on my reviews, all the better; I’d love to discuss some of the things I have read. A blog is potentially a great way to start a conversation on a subject.

I do keep a private journal as well, which I only post to sporadically. However, I have found it was invaluable in re-discovering thoughts and feelings that were important to me in different periods of my life.

Thanks for the eloquent and informative answer, @drdoombot. Obviously, you can write well and I’m sure your reviews are excellent – which brings me to: why in blog form? Why not have them published, or, just keep them in a word file. Why Blog, per ce? What is it about the format that you like?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I can see that being useful.

Some people use a blog as a journal, documenting what happens in their life but people can read it. Others use it to tell other people of common interests what they’ve been doing. Like @Simone_De_Beauvoir said, it could be dancing, and I’ve seen knitters, crocheting, crafting, etc.

@Zen_Again I edited my original response while you were composing, so let me me quote the addition again:

“If someone comes across my blog and comments on my reviews, all the better; I’d love to discuss some of the things I have read. A blog is potentially a great way to start a conversation on a subject.”

While my reviews are suitable for my purposes, I’m not sure they are publishable material; they are not academic or anything like that. I do keep some of my writings in my OneNote notebooks, hoping that one days they’ll be developed to the point that they can be published. If I compose a particularly good answer on Fluther, I make sure to keep a copy of that in my OneNote as well.

One thing I forgot to mention is that keeping a blog could be good practice for writing. I know I like to write but don’t do it often. A blog keeps me writing more consistently, and practice is good for anything you enjoy. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to have a large sampling of writing online, in case I want to write for a monetized blog or magazaine one day and they want to see my writing.

I have a blog that I add to from time to time.

I’ve tried keeping a journal or diary, but it just seems pointless to me to write something that is meant for no one’s eyes but mine. I mean, it’s already in my head… why write it down? Some things I need to get off my chest, or to share with someone, and a blog is a good way to do that. Sure, I don’t actually know anyone’s going to actually read my blog, but just putting it in a format where someone could read it… it’s enough.

I suppose, like so much of what we do online, it’s a way to get an “attaboy” from someone, for something. Just a little stroke to the ego, to let us know we’re doing something right.

Everything everywhere tells us what’s wrong with us. We’re too fat, we’re too weak, we’ve got XYZ medical issue… I just want someone to tell me “your casserole recipe tasted great, and man, you did a darn good job on that skirt, and could you post a tutorial so I can do the same?”

It’s like a warmfuzzy piece of Interwebs Lurve.

Thinking about why someone wants to broadcast their words, my thoughts turned to Fluther.

Asking or answering questions here, we are like kids in class, arms raised high, thinking “Pick me, pick me! I have something to say!”

A blog is a prolonged version of that.

I’ve been fascinated by this subject since a family member took it up a few years ago and commenced to use it as a bully pulpit to beat the family with. She has gained a small group of women who follow her and write comments about how awesome she is and how unfortunate to have a family like us. As a family we’ve discussed it and decided it doesn’t deserve comment from any of us. I decided from that experience that most bloggers were either political or a malignant narcissist like this family member. Then I saw that new movie, ‘Julie & Julia’, the true story of a young woman who decided to learn French cooking so took on the task of cooking all 500+ of Julia Child’s recipes in 365 days, and blog about it. It was inspirational and uplifting and completely changed the lives of Julie and her husband. Intention really is 90% of anything.

I used to often write blogs back when I used myspace, yea yea. I wrote about everything, from my rants about this and that, to why coffee makes you poop and how there’s better odds of there being life outside this planet than you winning the lottery. Then I kind of just lost touch with it along with myspace in general.

feels good man

I recently began following some literary blogs that are set up and maintained by a number of contributors and self-titled “editors”. The posts are insightful and they help me to broaden my literary interests (in other words, these blogs are used for discussion rather than journaling). They’ve introduced me to tons of authors I don’t think I would have discovered otherwise (“indie” authors, e.g.) and I find that reading such discussions is a good way to connect, at least in part, to a literary conversation that is unfortunately lacking in my life outside the Internet.

I confess I have no interest in reading someone’s personal blog and no interest in keeping my own. But these specialized blogs that provoke (and exist for) discussion can be pretty valuable. There are so, so many out there, too, that I think it’s just a matter of finding what interests you, Zen (although that may mean sifting through loads of whiny/sub-par/irrelevant stuff).

@absalom yea I started off writing personal, but progressed into stuff I wanted to discuss, but no one ever discussed much so I got bored with it, lol.

I love old movies and enjoy writing about them, so I blog movie reviews. Only a few close friends follow it. I don’t mind that. I write for myself. http://andysscreeningroom.blogspot.com/—to publish my movie reviews.

GQ.

I put my doodles up because they make me happy. Maybe they can make other people happy too. They’re just doodles so they wouldn’t qualify for any publication that I’m aware of so this is my way of sharing.

I don’t use My Twitface because I don’t want all of that other stuff. I just want to put my doodles out there. Maybe in some way I just want a record that I existed.

I use my tumblr blog as a place to stick pictures, videos, and other bits of information I want to share with people later.

I have a technical blog that I share things I figure out while coding. I’ve benefited from insights in others’ programming blogs, so I figure it’s good karma to share what I know.

I see no point to writing one. It would only give even more people an opportunity to mock or reject me socially. The only useful information I could supply would be information on autism and Aspergers Syndrome, which can be much better obtained elsewhere. Professional information is available only to paying customers, blogging it would be cutting my own throat professionally.
At one time I considered setting up a blog for friends to read, but then I realized (duh!) that I have no friends.

I write my photography blog to post photos from different session I have. Its also an easy way for clients to view my work and learn a little about me at the same time.

I’ve kept a blog for several years. The entries are mostly private, but those private-ish entries are the way I keep in touch with friends who are either spacially or temporally distant. If we didn’t keep in touch that way, there’s a good chance that we’d lose each other, and that would be a shame.

I don’t just write boring stuff like “I had oatmeal for breakfast,” because that would be lame and no one would care. I only write if there’s a point to it – something eventful happened, or there’s an observation I care to make, or something funny needs said. I post in it, maybe weekly? Twice a month?

The reason I blog these things is because the format is suitable for the way I write. In Fluther, for example, everything needs to be a question. In FaceSpace and Twitter, the format is short bursts of text, and sometimes things take more space and detail than a soundbite. So I blog. It fills a need.

@laureth @willbrawn Thanks.