A Public Private Life
In recent privacy debates, it’s often noted that much of the private information now available in the public domain is actually *volunteered*, in blogs. Gone is the time when your exposed privacy is someone else’s fault. You have bared everything in the blog.
Of course, we all approach blogging differently. Many see a blog as an electronic newspaper column, in which they tackle topics of wider public interest than, let’s say, what they ate for breakfast this morning. Others treat the blog as a personal diary on steroids, published for syndication right alongside the pretentious “columnist” blogs, addressing delicate issues of the soul and the details of daily life. My wife Jessica mostly takes this latter approach on her domain The Zucchini Patch. And the bitch gets more hits than Garden of Blog these days. Hmph.
Part of that is because she is so prolific, and has simply made more material available on her blog than I have. But another part of it is her following in the family. With such an open window into our daily family dealings, our relatives feel almost obligated to look in on us and see how we are doing.
Thus we live a very public private life. Like a lot of blogging families these days. The internet has grown into a panopticon that is frankly not spying on us but allowing us to spy on ourselves. And the closer we look, the more imperfections we discover.
on March 11th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Just yesterday I was thinking “I’d like to hear more from Marcus,” and here you are. I love reading all that Jessica writes, but over the years I have found that a healthy dose of Marcus thrown in the mix provides a much more illuminating view of what’s really going on.
By the way, the right side bar is sitting on top of the comment field. If I’ve made any typos that’s why.
on March 12th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I don’t think our relatives feel obligated to read my blog, but you can ask them if you’re worried.
In reference to your thoughts on privacy, I suppose we do have a different perspective in regards to this topic. At one point, I was completely stripped of my privacy against my will. I consider it a privilege to share only what I choose to. I water down and omit a variety of incidents and circumstances in an attempt to shield you from a sense of invasion.
I thought Adrienne’s comment was slightly offensive, but I’m sure she just didn’t stop to consider the implications of her statement.
on March 12th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
This all goes to prove how “real” blogging can be. The dramas we live out here are genuine. I am always genuinely offending people online, so I hope Adrienne doesn’t feel alone. So much has to do with word choice in this domain. Perhaps language is a coarse tool with which we help each other sand the rough edges off our egos?
on August 7th, 2007 at 7:19 am
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