Tuesday, April 14, 2009

BYOB (Bring Your Own Blog)

Why blogs? Why Tweets? Just as everyone was bemoaning the proliferation of e-mail ("I get 764 new e-mails a day...") new kids on the communication block have bullied us into even further info-overload. Remember TMI? We think its become NEI (Never Enough Information.) Unless we prove we exist by providing all the data points, perhaps we don't.
Maybe it's a “permission” thing: blogs and tweets offer the same massive quantity of masturbatory information about me as an e-mail Christmans letter, but the audience has to decide to opt in (vs having it presented to you w/o permission.) Or are thes new media really just You Tube, verbal-style. In an age of omnipresent cameras and records of our lives, can we REALLY exist if we are not “on record”? Is this why kids record beatings of other kids? Why robbers record their derring-do? Or, are blogs the ‘reality tv of actual lives’? No longer journals, written at day’s end, by necessity omitting many of the details of real-time reporting, but a blow-by-blow, you-are-there record of a life.
Interesting trend: first, we emerged from our homes to ‘live’ in coffee shops. We opt to access wi-fi in public places (even tho' we could communicate just as easily from home) and hang out in locations where we can be with (and be viewed by) others. Now, we are bringing our lives to others via new technologies…sharing the details of our existence through tweets and blogs. Maybe we're claiming our share of cyberspace. Like a gold rush (remember the frantic grab for web names? If you do, poke us.
--MSH & LBH

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