Why do we Blog?

A two-fold post for you this time:

Part 1: More about the Blogging feature on BBC Click

Part 2: Why do we Blog?

Part 1.

This week was busy – the latest episode of Click Bits -the little 3 minute tech newscast – is now online… Click on the pic if you want to watch it.

(RSS Readers/can’t click on the pic to view? link here: Http://bit.ly/clickbits006 )

…and my blogging piece on BBC Click is on this week’s show.

Thank you very much Judith Lewis , Mike Robinson , Marko Saric, Clare English and Andy Bargery for their cameos.   They each gave me about 20 seconds’ worth of blog tips on video, which I integrated into the piece.

I took a few 3 second shots of some blogs at the beginning of the package

They are listed here:

• Going Underground eccentric blog all about things that happen on London’s transport system
• cat-fest I Can Haz Cheezburger and its sister site failblog
• unchained guide showing the best independent shops in cities,
• Black Phoebe, a beautiful photo blog

Below are a few more blogs I’ve enjoyed reading in recent times:

• Something to be said – breathtaking prose and inventive fiction – with teeth
• Dead Hub – raw music and rock blog
• Rocketboom – internet culture blog

You’ll be able to read the whole transcript of the blogging feature here.

• _

part 2.

Making the segment got me to thinking about when I first started blogging, so I went back and read my “Hello World” post i.e. the first post I ever wrote, which was about 90 posts ago.

(If you absolutely have to, you can read it here. <cringe>)

Then I wondered: What makes us blog? What drives us to leave a mark of our mundane existence on the internet? Who do we imagine writing to when we’re typing?

So, of course, I came up with a thoroughly empirical theory.

As a human, I normally spend a lot of time thinking, but my mouth blurts any given thought out after little (if any) moderation from my addled, overworked, overclocked brain.  I’m assuming that other humans experience this too.*

If that is the case (and if we have the desire to do so) then writing could give us the freedom and time to craft a sentence, play with the words, and get a sense of perspective we can rarely access “in the moment”. We can proof-read our thoughts in type, then adjust that thought until it “makes sense” – to us, the authors, as much as any reader. This crafting of ideas into concrete might even result in learning something about ourselves we didn’t know until we saw it on the page.  Or of course, it could be nothing of the sort. We could just want to post pictures of cats because we love cat pictures.

Incidentally, the above paragraph took 35 minutes to write, and included moving the sentences around, working out what I wanted to say – then making it sound nice to read in my head. I’m now doubting whether or not it’s a self-indulgent paragraph of pointlessness, and now I’m thinking it’s dinner time soon, and I should probably turn the computer off and deal with this later.

Indeed, none of the above musings touch on the obvious love of story that permeates our very existence – mythology, fairy tales and even documentaries – but that is most definitely another post all on its own.

So,  please leave your comments: Bloggers, Why do you blog? Readers, what do you read?  I’d be honoured if you left your thoughts below.

*to paraphrase the great Douglas Adams, and probably a few others, the worst assumptions are the ones you don’t know you’re making.