‘If you blog and no one’s there to read it does it still matter?’

Thanks, Nick. In my clear attempt to make a spur-of-the-moment blog post that relates to Networked Media, my dear friend Nicholas angrily retorted my prodding with this pearl of wisdom, unabashedly stolen from the whole ‘tree in the forest’ philosophy.

I’d make a few adjustments to Nick’s assumption, and posit that a case of whether a blog can or does ‘matter’ is irrelevant, and that we should instead focus on a more basic level: is a blog a blog if no one reads it?

Google defines a blog as : A Web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.

By that definition a private blog is still a blog, but I would argue that the modern reading of the word extends into its audience; a blog, by understanding, is a public space. One with a totalitarian sense of single-party control, but a public space nonetheless, one where whatever is there is public. So, can a blog no one reads be considered a blog?

A dictionary would argue yes. A blogger, perhaps not. What is the point of private blogging, or – if you’d let me define it – blogging without the intent of letting one see what is being written. This excludes drafts, only encompassing writing that is NEVER meant to be consumed by the public. I might even argue that blogs only able to be read by a chosen audience of the bloggers meets the same hurdle: is it a blog, or more of a forum? The public doesn’t matter, the people there know why they are there and presumably have context and understanding most others don’t.

A real blog is one where context can’t be relied upon. I could be – if you’re only reading this entry and no others – a Japanese school girl with six fingers on my left hand. My father could be a fisherman and I could be writing my first entry in this blog that isn’t somehow related to my normal routine of posting lesbian sloth porn on Fridays. A quick check of my other posts discredits that fantasy, but if you aren’t here because of my directing you, then chances are you don’t know jack about me.

Am I male or female? Gay or straight? Young or old? African or Eastern European? Have I had cancer? Am I an orphan? You probably don’t know, and that’s why the public is so important to a blog. All they have is what they’ve been presented with, and that is – in my contextualised definition – what a blog is, and should be. You shouldn’t know what the blogger doesn’t want you to know, it’s the blog that matters and you can build your interpretations around it.

If no one can read your blog, then why have a blog at all? This is for us, the Everyman, to ingest and enjoy. You may write it for your friends, you may make it private for them, but that rejects what I think a blog is. It is fine to direct it, but it’s designed to reach the public, and limiting that – I believe – is a defiance of what a blog is and should be.