Week 2: Writing about yourself online
1. With an anonymous username, writing about myself online feels very freeing and stress relieving. I think that having an open and nonjudgemental space to just say anything and everything that you want feels very safe to me. I think that sharing our personal dreams, thoughts, etc. is a really good thing not only for our own mental health, but also so that others are able to relate, not feel alone, and maybe even gain another personal perspective that they might not have thought of before. Lastly, I think that there definitely is a point to where someone could overshare and lose their sense of voice. In my opinion, sharing general things about your self is great but some things can be too personal to share with others, and those are things that can make you who you are so if everyone knows them it could make you feel less interesting and/or original.
2. I think people are interested in reading other peoples' journals for two reasons. The first reason could be that they just want to relate to someone else, or they want to learn more about a person because they are interested in them in some way. However, I think the second reason would be a little less genuine with the idea that many people are just nosy and want to figure out what other people are doing so that they can talk about others in order to make themselves feel better. Furthermore, I think that the idea of consumption about other peoples' lives is a very big modern issue especially with social media, because people are always comparing themselves to other people even though what people post isn't usually a clear picture as to what is going on in their lives.
3. In my opinion, most diary writers do write in stream of consciousness mode because they are usually writing about what they are thinking, feeling, or doing and usually just for their own personal good. However, I used the words "most" and "usually" because there are definitely a few diary writers that write more for the idea of what they want the readers of their diary to view them as which isn't always who that person really is. In addition, I think that everyone, not only the writer, can learn a lot from the writers' entries because like I said before, they are able to relate to someone or if they are open minded they are able to gain another perspective that isn't their own.
4. In my opinion, I think that diary writers shouldn't be very concerned with spelling, name dropping, etc. if the purpose of the diary is to just genuinely share their own thoughts and ideas. However, I do understand that many diary readers will take the diary less seriously if it isn't well organized, or has spelling errors, etc. so I think that there is a happy medium in making your diary look presentable but also creating your diary for your own good and not to show off to others.
Hello, I Have enjoyed your blog post because we agree on many of the same things. However, i would disagree that the consumption of people lives is only a modern issue because without the past consumption of oversharing we wouldn't have the present. I believe the consumption has always been the same but have switched media platforms. From newspapers, to radio to cable and to now social media. Same consumption just a different way of consuming.
ReplyDeleteHi! I have to agree that spelling and grammar should not be a huge concern for people who are choosing to write diary entries. However, I also fully agree with the fact that some people may not take their words as seriously and some people may not even finish reading if there are way too many errors. I know that I, personally, hate when there is a lot of spelling errors or grammar mistakes, but I can get past it. We had similar thoughts on writing online anonymously. I think it is great and freeing in a way, but I do wonder, why do we feel so uncomfortable sharing our views or thoughts openly? We know our writing can be criticized whether we use an anonymous name or not, yet we still tend to feel so much more comfortable when we are anonymous.
ReplyDeleteHello, I have to say that I strongly disagree with your point that sharing things that are too personal will make you less interesting/original because everyone knows about them. Care to elaborate on that? I have a Blu-ray collection of over 200 titles. Does this make me less interesting now that you know this? Because in MY opinion, the less you know about someone, the less interesting they are. Because that could mean one of two things: they don't WANT me to know about them or they're not interesting to begin with. I'd love to know about the crazy stuff that makes people unique. It tells me so much more about who they are than if you just give me a boring, generic answer.
ReplyDeletePersonalities aren't something that can be collected and absorbed like a comic book supervillain You can be the same unique person by sharing something about yourself that you think is interesting to share, because it makes you more memorable.
Is an interesting angle from all of this is what kinds of expectations one enters into the digital platform? Do they differ from f2f and other types of media? Does the need that people feel to write about themselves reflect on emotional and mental health? These are complicated things to ruminate on aren't' they? Madman, you make a interesting
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