Blog Thoughts

I think I may finally have come up with something to say about the NY Times mommy blog brouhaha (link for anyone who has been under a hole for the last week--or who has zero interest in mommy blogs and just reads me because, perhaps, they share DNA with my nuclear family) (is “under a hole” really what I mean there? I think maybe I’ve transposed “under a log” with “in a hole”???) (though I kind of like “under a hole”--it suggests an existential refusal to deal with the real world, as well as a practical one).

At any rate, I’m going to meander toward my point with some recent thoughts about blogs.

I’m obsessed with Blogger’s “Next Blog” button. See it there in the upper-right corner? Go ahead, click on it, and see what happens. I just did and found the following, in order:

- a one-post blog from a British textile company that includes the poignant line, “Although this business has never had notable online activities , we will eagerly wait in anticipation to see the out come of it's first year in cyber space.”

- a blog that focuses primarily on politics and astronomy written half in English and half in Portuguese

- a blog from Kuwait kept by an anti-fundamentalist music lover who usually writes in English but occasionally switches to Arabic

- a blog of business forms for automotive repair businesses

- and the ubiquitous teenager blog with random capitalization and a barely readable template.

It goes on and on: bloggers in every language, of every age, with every conceivable interest, and probably some you don’t want to conceive of (I’ll leave them out to avoid scary Google hits).

Then there are the knitting blogs. I’m fascinated by the knitting blogs. Those women--and I haven’t yet come across a man--are maniacs. How on earth do they manage to knit so much, and then blog so much about said knitting? (Of course if I spent less time reading blogs, I might perchance do more knitting, or even more writing…) The big rage on the knitting blogs is Clapotis. It’s a shawl, not a liqueur or a disease, and everyone’s making it (see Yarn Harlot who blogged everyone else’s posts about Clapotis). Even I’m tempted.

Finally, there’s the Jennsylvania thing. Jen, who blogs at Jennsylvania, got a book contract. Lizzie, who blogs at Old Hag, is not very happy about it. I read neither Jennsylvania nor Old Hag, but, being the book/gossip monger that I am, I checked out both. Verdict: I have no interest in Jen’s blog or book, but I might return for more of Lizzie’s caustic comments.

But you know, I really don’t have a problem with Jen getting a book contract. For one thing, I have a basic level of admiration for anyone who can manage to write a book and send it out. That’s hard work, no matter what the quality of the book (hence my fascination with the clearly self-written book blurbs in the Author House ads in the NY Times). For another thing, what do I care if Jen writes a book or even if Jennsylvania is worth reading? I don’t have to read it.

Which brings me circuitously back to mommy blogs. Why does David Hochman care if a bunch of parents are blogging about their kids? It doesn’t hurt anyone. It makes a lot of people happy. He doesn’t have to read it. Just like S doesn’t have to read knitting blogs and I don’t have to read music blogs, and my sister doesn’t have to read my blog (except she does because it’s about me).

This isn’t to say that blogs don’t make a difference. When bloggers get together and take action, they can have a significant effect on the world beyond blogs--hence the Swift Boat fiasco and the inspiring triumph against the West Virginia miscarriage legislation. And of course, as my thoughtful friend Andi Buchanan points out, in brief on her blog and at length elsewhere, the sense of community and companionship that blogs produce is very real--for those who want it.

But this need to comment upon and condemn other people’s activities that don’t have anything to do with the commenter…well, if I’m feeling lighthearted, it seems like just another sign of the cultural moment’s general snarkiness, but if I put it in the context of all the bullshit, oxymoronic talk about “freedom” that gets thrown around these days, it seems like one more ominous effort to keep people from doing what they want to do, and what the hell is that?

[Some other time I’ll blog about my other theory: that blogs are the current opiate of the masses. Hey, I’m a complicated girl.]