This page is about understanding the general sentiment of disdain or anger towards blogs and blogging.
blog bloggers blogging blogs anger distaste dislike hate superfreudianism misanthropy
The Territory
There is a general sentiment of distaste, or even outright anger, against blogs, bloggers, and blogging.
- Why I Hate Personal Weblogs by bones [1]
This page became famous, and was forwarded all over the place.
See also the funny companion survey.
Reasons
- Misanthropy. A deep hatred of humanity would almost certainly produce a hatred of blogs. To quote “bones’” article: “The problem of course, is people.”
- SuperFreudianism. A subconscious belief that every human activity is ultimately reducable to things that people wouldn’t link. If only they people knew the aweful things they were doing!
- Fear of Other People. This one is a little more serious than the others. It is plausible that people have some sort of subconscious genuine fear of knowing the thoughts in other peoples’ heads. They’d rather “keep it professional” in “such a public space” as the web.
- High Culture. Philistines! Why is that person over there reading the Tao of Poo when they could just read the original Tao Te Ching?
- Techno-Conservatism. If it’s not e-mail or gopher, it’s crrrap! They’re probably upset that the blog has replaced the finger file.
- Extreme Ignorance. “What?! People… want to talk to each other? What is this… How you say… “Talk?” Or to pick on “bones” again: “Who reads these weblogs? Nobody!”
- StereoTyping?. “I read a bunch of blogs of LiveJournal. There were people talking about making sandwiches and doing their laundry. Therefor, if you are blogging, you are talking about making sandwiches and doing laundry.”
- Dis-Association. Since the stereotype of blogs is that people are only talking about making sandwiches and doing laundry, and because I think of those acts as stupid stuff (like going to the bathroom,) I’m going to dissaciate myself from those things by saying that I HATE BLOGS! If I’m not feeling quite so radical, I will merely question their utility and existance.
- Mono-Platformism. Everyone should be using wiki. Or everyone should be using email. Or everyone should use this one groupware suite.
- AntiHype?. People get tired of hearing the same thing over and over. They’d rather hear something new, rather than be inundated with the same news about blogging, over and over and over again. (see: HypeAndEnthusiasm.)
See Also
Translation
CategoryBlog
I think High Culture and Dis-Association are the main reasons, with a little bit of Stereotyping.
For us wiki people, of course, there’s some Mono-Platformism as well.
Personally when I bash blogs it’s probably because of Dis-Association and Mono-Platformism.
Let me apply a little Dis-Association towards Why I Hate Personal Weblogs, also, though, by saying that I don’t mind what other people write, since no one is forcing me to read it.
The anger some people feel about blogs will almost certainly die out over the next 10 years, as people acclimate to it.
I don’t know how to prioritize this list; I’ve seen all of these, and I’m not really sure in what percentages.
You said that personally, it was high culture and dis-association, but then: I don’t think you’re one of the people that really get knee-jerk reactions when you hear about blogging..!
The bloggers of today are the wikizens of tomorrow. I love bloggers.