Rachael and I were talking about blogs and blogging the other day, and she mentioned how many of her friends have Live Journals that they use as a place to vent and rant.

If you've ever spent any time skimming through Live Journals, you'd come away with the impression that half the teens in America are Columbine-capable manic depressives with a severe death wish.

Rachael admitted to being worried about some of her friends that she doesn't see very often, because she reads their Live Journals and expects them to be seriously screwed up in the head. Then, when they get together she's a little freaked by how normal and happy they are.

That's the problem with blogs in general. Your place to rant and rave or bare all or throw out wry commentary is nothing more than a mask. Intimacy is simulated by the details and personal nature of one's posts, but we're all just looking at the face the author wishes us to see. When you don't understand that or forget, then you get a very skewed perspective on who a person is and what they're really like. Little wonder then, that not only is it almost impossible to adaquately explain what blogging is to someone who's never heard of it, but that the whole blogging phenomenom is so misunderstood by pretty much everyone (media, politicians and even bloggers themselves).

Posted by: Ted at 07:09 AM | category: Square Pegs
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1 Well we'll just have to test you theory when you come through CT and lunch with Spork and I!

Mwuahahahaha.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at May 29, 2005 08:01 AM (ics4u)

2 unfortunately, for my co-workers and my family, I'm pretty much the same all the time.

Posted by: Derek at May 29, 2005 09:57 AM (iY1/W)

3 I'll bring the grated strychnine.

Mwuhahahahaha!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at May 29, 2005 04:18 PM (Rl1kU)

4 I just hope you guys aren't too disappointed when you find out that I'm really a short asian lady with thick glasses and a thicker accent.

Posted by: Ted at May 29, 2005 04:53 PM (+OVgL)

5 I already had you pegged as looking like Edna Mode, just not as masculine.

Posted by: Rob@L&R at May 30, 2005 10:29 AM (rZxIa)

6 I think that it was you who, when I had Caterwauling dot com running, was shocked to find out that I'm pretty blase and quiet in person. Everything I wrote on the blog was true, and the rants were real. But that was only one side of my personality. Hell, I got so much vitriol out of my system online that I didn't have any energy left to drop-kick a Care Bear in a toy store.

Posted by: dawn at June 01, 2005 03:06 PM (jFpDX)

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