The blogger I am following is called Dooce.com. I didn't know she was once local to my hometown when I found her, but she once lived in Bartlett, TN. She portrays herself as a psychotic, married, home-maker. Along with the readings, it could be based on lies- but I love the fact that my blogger has three main focuses- daily photo, daily chuck, and daily style. Along with these are the comments she leaves on her day. She has a whole page dedicated to the history of what brought her to become a professional blogger. She updates almost daily- with a heads up on when they go on vacation, then she posts double time to make up for it. I have read every piece since I decided to follow weeks ago!
The way that I understand the two readings is as such. Baym sorta focuses on the allowance of truth through the internet, and the other reading focuses on the ability to role play or lie or have many personas for freedom. (lies). It is possible that my Dooce blogger is lying through her keyboard, but she seems to be open about her history of mental illness and how it effects her daily life.
The daily photo is always a personal story illustration, the daily chuck is her dog "chuck" she tends to pick on, and the daily style is anything culturistic from paintings(her most recent post) to a piece of jewelry she decided to wear and why. Both readings touched on both aspects, but I found they each had a focus of lies(role playing) vs truth (what they find true about themselves).
Though Baym focuses more on version of truth and which sectors you use it in, Turkle responds to identity with however you feel that day, is the person you become online because there are no consequences to stretching a new story or "identity" online.
Exactly Laurne, what is true and what is fiction? Can we tell until it's too late? Are we alert enough while surfing the internet. Do we make ourselves aware of liars and crooks? Baym do give good examples of "pretender", if I may call them that. I do believe the internet is set up to entertain people when they are bored. The social networking part of it,I mean. I look at people on the internet day in and day out as people with no set goals. I only get on the internet for research and then I'm off. I can't sit at a computer for a very long period of time chatting with a stranger. They say conversation rules the nation, but it don't rule ME!
ReplyDeleteI sort of touched base on this already when I was commenting on the post on the blog about the MS patient but having a blog must be really important to people who have some sort of illness. Maybe some people feel like they can't talk about the illnesses or problems in real life so they use the internet to vent their frustrations and maybe meet some other people who are just like them.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think with internet interactions readers don't really care if the writer is being honest. I think sometimes readers just want to believe what that want to believe. I think that is how many people get involved in bad relationships or get burned. I hate to be a critic but I feel that you just have to take the good with the bad when dealing with people that communicate on the internet.
ReplyDeleteYes Niki I agree with you! Some bloggers don't care about honesty. Some people whole life is a lie but it suites the life of another person(s) making them comfortable. Just like a person with illness reach out to others to help them get through the day. They could care less if the person is lying as long as they are hearing the right things at that moment. Remember some people with illness don't know how long they have left to live, so someone reaching out and showing love means a bunch to them! ;*)
ReplyDeleteI do think that we shouldn't focus too much on lying online--yes, people can lie, but why would they necessarily? And isn't it harder to maintain a lie than to just be honest? Especially over the long term. And surely there are plenty of people who lie f2f all the time (think con artists). Before jumping to conclusion about how people present themselves and whether or not it is honest, think--what would they have to gain. Why pretend to have a mental illness? Isn't that *more* stigmatized?
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