01.29.08

Blog over Troubled Waters

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:16 pm by Sarah

oh dear..since Andrew’s looking for it!

My name is Sarah and I’m a blogaholic. I’ve tried to give up but keep having relapses. When I see or read something interesting, my inner voice says “I must put that on my blog”. Then my other voice says “No, Sarah, you don’t. Tell a friend, not the world”. Then all the other voices join in and I have to lie down for a while. So when John Waters had a go at blogs I was willing to listen, but then he went over the top and I had to figure out what he’s at. Maybe he needs to lie down for a while too?

On Newstalk’s Breakfast Show a couple of weeks ago, he said that blogs were “entirely stupid’ and asked the hosts to find him a blogger who could put three consecutive words together. Newstalk obliged him and organised a debate between Waters and Tuppenceworth blogger and barrister Fergal Crehan in which the Irish Times columnist could have gracefully acknowledged that his opponent could speak quite fluently and coherently. Instead he went on to observe that blogs are “entirely negative, entirely cynical and entirely aggressive”. Other terms used were “poisonous” and “inhuman”. His diatribe against “the internet” and “the computer” included a claim that 60-70% of the Internent is porn and when challenged to cite a source said he didn’t need to as “everyone knows that”. In his column last week about Pope Benedict withdrawing from a speaking engagement at a university due to protests he said the blogosphere culture embraced “ideological spite and indifference to truth”. Oh dear.

These remarks are patently silly and plainly wrong. There are bloggers who can put more than three words of english together. In addition to Crehan, would it be dreadfully arrogant to suggest myself as one? There are many bloggers who are not stupid : nobel prize winners and respected academics like Brad de Long are famous bloggers. I frequently find myself laughing over warm and funny comments on blogs : no cynicism, no poison. Everyone does not know that 60-70% or even “well over half” of the Internet is porn. In fact, no one knows. Even Google has to guess as only a fraction of the internet has been indexed. Oh, and the Pope Benedict protest consisted of a student sit-in and a letter signed by professors at the university. “The Internet” had nothing to do with it.

However, for the sake of rational argument, let’s pretend he said that blogging is frequently, rather than entirely, negative. I try to give up blogging because apart from the time I waste, I get tired of the occasional arguments which break out on my blog. He says we need to assess why blogging can get so negative. He’s wrong about much but he’s right about that. So what’s going on?

A blog can be about any subject but we can definitively say two things about all blogs.

The first is that blogs are a social networking tool. In non-internet parlance, that means that they connect people with one another. Official social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo are where people who already know each other, like classmates and colleagues, catch up with each other. With advertising thrown in they are negative in the sense that these are businesses which make money from friendship. They have their bullies, but so do mobile phones. Shall we assess the negativity of phones?

Blogs, though sometimes showing advertisements, are generally non-commercial means for people who do or don’t know each other in real life to exchange views. I can honestly say that I have renewed old friendships on my blog and connected with people I’ve never met for honest, rewarding chats and often, a good laugh.

Secondly blogs are a medium that simply reflect humanity. Recently I compared the poor standard of shop service in Ireland to that in America. Then I got a letter in the post signed “Paddy” : no last name and no address. It said “Dear Bitch, Why don’t you fuck off permanently to New York you anti-Irish Bitch.” I had a good laugh about it with my husband. “What can you expect?” he said “if you are going to alienate the shop assistant community?” The next day I got another letter telling me I was wonderful and a particular column should be taught in schools.

Letters such as these are rare but emails and blog comments expressing similar sentiments are quite regular. For the record, I get more positive : or rather reasonable -correspondence than negative. Also for the record, the single biggest group of angry correspondents are those advocating Father’s Rights : John’s fans. Across the political blogs many observers have noted that right wingers tend to “troll” : deliberately provoke arguments – more than left wingers. What does it prove? Not a whole lot. Expressing opinions publicly makes some people very angry while gaining the approval of others. If someone has gone to the trouble of writing a letter, putting it in a envelope and going to the post office, it means they felt very strongly for a whole day, or even several days. If they sent an email or wrote a comment on a blog, they felt strongly for about a minute. If they complained loudly in the pub to their friends about a moronic journalist or corrupt politician, it means they don’t really care that much. Having daily internet access gives the pub crowd a bigger opportunity to vent.

Waters says that the Internet “draws out” negativity. What it actually does, and what’s hard to take, is that it delivers existing negativity very efficiently right into your house and onto your desk. There will always be people who think I’m a bitch or John is “pathetic” as he’s noted recently. Now they just have a remarkably easy way to inform us of their considered opinion. The Internet doesn’t encourage negative feelings, it merely overcomes the inertia and cowardice required to express them.

Of course, just because people can do something, doesn’t mean they should. Digital natives, those born into the age of the internet will learn how to protect themselves online from criminals, the criminally stupid and their own worst impulses. The Digital Immigrants, the leftovers from world of paper who have trouble adjusting to the online world will probably never quite get it.

“It” is that the internet, despite the cranks, the nutters and yes the pornographers, has democratised debate and rather than isolating people facilitates the creation of online communities who have great fun, develop thought and provide moral and practical support for each other. Bloggers have grabbed a share of public discourse from press barons and exclusively annointed commentators. Sometimes its not pretty, but accusing it of being entirely negative is entirely wrong and entirely cynical. With skills like this, maybe Waters should start blogging?

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