Rough and Tumblr: Historiography and the Permanence of Autobiography in the Blogosphere

Sooo, although I tried to be more frequent in my posts, my tumblr blog was much more accessible and user-friendly for what I want to do. I need the simplistic layout, the suggestions for formatting posts for either photos, quotes, music, links, just text, etc. Since my thoughts are usually fragmented its where I can accomplish my more successful "blogging"- although its usually its just other peoples ideas recreated as mine. This blog is a blog at heart, and most days I just dont have a heart to talk about about anything.

The only strange thing about tumblr is that I never know if people are watching or not. Its like sneaking out in the middle of the night to do graffiti. Eventually someone MUST see it, but you can never really know. Another funny thing about it is when people start "following" me. Sure it shows up that so-and-so now follows me, but why?! One guy from St. John's started following my blog and he posts frequently about his thesis and designs and basically its linked to his twitter feed. Random blog connections always fascinate me- it takes so little to feel gratified in being in the blog world on the small scale as long as you get the occasional comment or follower. But I watched Julie and Julia the other night and as Julie says, for every one person that comments there must be....hundreds, at least, that dont...right? Well, I'm not sure if I'm getting hundreds who view only, but its true. People in real life have told me that they've looked in before. And I think how many blogs I follow but have never commented because what do I say? I don't know the person, they don't want advice, just praise to make it worthwhile.

I wonder if any anthropologists are studying the blog culture in this way- expanding social circles, the obvious link to voyeurism, the nature of the relationships people form through blogging...there must be. It's fascinating. Being a long-distance friend in real life makes it very easy to understand the community of blog friends. Some of my friends I only get updated on through reading their blogs. (I guess thats why Facebook was so successful, but thats another story). I reread my whole Livejournal account not long ago, and although I never post to it, I keep it just to keep following those people who do. I started using it in July 2004!! Now that was a successful blog for me at the time. I had a lot to share back then and there were people that listened. It hold significant meaning for me as a historical document of my life.

That's another thing I believe attracts people to blogging. Permanence of thought and existence, reassurance that they are leaving some tangible mark on the world and for the world. It's really a revelation in history-making. I envy the future historians who might access ye olde blogosphere and realize what a gold mine of society it is. As an archaeologist I might never get the opportunity to be witness to the actual thoughts and ideologies that make people people. Despite efforts in modern archaeological theory, I don't believe this can ever happen to such an extent. The evidence left behind even to create an archaeological record makes this impossible, it's never one individual portraying themselves. Even in history, historiography represents sure one individual authour, but they are writing about others. It gives a glimpse into the position of the authour and their personal history, but only through true autobiography can a person portray their own history.

This might be motivation enough to keep blogging.