Who are bloggers in real life?
2 December 2007, 2:00 pm. View comments. Filed under Web-related.
What type(s) of people hang on the Internet? Who in the world would own websites not for the sake of commercial work? Why would anyone blog about his/her personal life and who the heck reads?
When people in real life hear about me blogging, their expressions tell me they're probably expecting something along the lines of the typical heaps-of-pink-and-glitter blah. But after the select few proceed to my website, it's the whole "Did you do this by yourself?" "Yeah." From here onwards, I'm seen as a no-life web geek who's going to fail her exams—until I actually don't. It's weird, because there's that whole bunch of young bloggers here and there who are apparently top students here and there. Now we're all just no-life web geeks. You could argue that geeks are perfectly fine (as they are), but I do actually have a life.
I don't like the tone certain "friends" use when they say: "What are you up to in the holidays? Doing your websites again?" Yes, yes, to those crazy binging party-girls, I'm just a boring loner who refuses to skateboard across busy roads and would rather do part-time work or sit at my computer during the holidays. But when I do have a choice, of course I would ditch the web for some fun day-out with better friends.
So who are we bloggers in real life? According to those parents of mine who still have their minds stuck in the 20th century, people who roam on the web are either slackers, pedophiles, rapists... or all of them. As for me, I am who I am and I'm none of those (only a bit of a procrastinator which I wouldn't quite classify as a slacker yet).
Are you content with your image amongst the offline ignorant around you? But who are you in real life? If you really are a rapist, well, I wouldn't know until you try to rape me. So before then, you can be who you claim to be—just another blogger like me who has a life to blog about.
17 Comments »
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Haha, I think I'm just like you =p I love blogging and all web/computer related stuffs, but hanging out with friends and family is more important. The web is just a place for me to think of other things when my head is filled with a lot of pressurizing thoughts
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"Oh, you have a website? What, a MYSPACE?" is the most common. But when they actually do go, they like it. Of course, I really am a geek, which Im proud of. If I have free time it goes to my boyfriend, my websites, reading, or drawing (maybe photography also as Im getting into that). But I do have a life, just not the stereotypical waste away your life doing unimportant and or harmful type. :-)
I have this ironic trait that unless I really like you and know you well, Im less likely to use my free time on you because I dont have much of it. Likewise, I have few close friends, which Im fine with. And those that are are the absolute best. -
I am a slacker, but I slack on my website as much as I do anywhere else. =P
I generally don't tell people IRL about my blog, though. It doesn't really come up (they ask if I have a myspace, I say no, end of conversation) and I'm not going to introduce people to my geekery and my poetry without some invitation on their part as well. -
I guess some would say I'm anti-social offline, but I like to see it as a happy, albeit quite quiet existence. I have plenty of hobbies to keep me entertained when alone, and I get enough socialness with the almost daily meeting ups with my boyfriend and occasional meeting of other friends. I don't define myself but the number of parties I've been to or the number of drinks I've downed. I'd rather a hearty, meaningful conversation any day.
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Um... well I have a life outside creating my website: obviously as I've been procrastinating ;) Though I spend about 9-10 hours at work and the rest at home watching Bones Tv series, some anime or asleep.
I do go out occasionally: especially now with all this Christmas frenzy: I have no idea what to get grandpa *sulks*
I suppose, I am a no-life, but geek would be exaggerating. It's not like I'm actually doing geeky stuff. Or... is there such a thing as sleep geek??
As for your friends: they don't know how to make a website, so obviously they think it requires centuries. *rolls eyes* -
Fortunately, I've never gotten the same response as you seem to get - everyone I've ever said "Oh yeah, and by the way, I have a website" to seems to think it's amazingly cool. My un-techsavvy extended relatives visit it. Some of my acquaintances visit it. Some of my business partners even visit it.
Oddly enough, my closest friends and family don't make much of an effort to check it out unless I point them in that direction. ;)
I suppose the reaction you get really depends on who you hang out with; most of my friends aren't from "the MySpace era", so having a website isn't immediately thought of as having a glittery page, but rather, a portfolio of sorts. For those who are from that generation, well... I really don't know what they think.
Maybe they expect something horrible!
So yeah - I'm happy with my offline image in relation to my online presence - if anything, having a website actually <em>impresses</em> the people I reveal it to. Plus, I've made it in such a way that it reflects who I am offline; i.e. my website is supposed to be an online representation of who I am as a person.
Oh, and Rilla? I'm secretly a 45 year old fat, hairy man who likes boys. And I've met them all on teh big bad internets. ;) -
I *don't* tell anyone in real life about my blog. Probably because as a middle-aged bald guy, my beer buddies aren't really interested... O.O
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I don't have much of an interesting life offline. Most of my time is spent studying, working or sleeping. I don't do much, I even try to NOT make friends (but I do have some anyway...) I try not to get attached to people, I have this weird ideas of not depending of or waiting for anyone.
When I do talk to my friends, I don't tell them that I have a website. None of my friends of family know that I blog. It would be really awkward, specially with my dad. Maybe that's why I feel the need to blog, to express myself. Oh and I really enjoy designing so that's a perk.
If I saw a blogger walk by past me, I wouldn't know that he has a website, I don't think there is anything that you can do to spot a blogger, at least not in this country where people are so illiterate in every aspect. Most can't even spell, and reading more than one sentence is crazy stuff. So I don't expect anyone I know to write about their day or read about someone's day. My ex-bf was a blogger, he blogged in his myspace, and he thought he had the coolest blog ever, he even told me "you should try blogging" I lol'd inside. I have to admit that his blog was kinda cool, his entries made me laugh Maddox style, and he didn't even know who Maddox was.
Man I'm babbling -
Well, you know who I am, Rilla. I am not no rapist, lol. I am disabled and stuck at home most of time so my outlet to the outside world. I don't blog about my personal life very often so that part doesn't really count towards me. Honestly I couldn't tell you what I blog about. I just type what comes into my head when I look at the entry screen, lol. I have no idea who the people are that visit my site in real life. You could walk right by me, Rilla on the street and I would have no idea it was you. It is the same with all my online friends. But then they would have no idea that it was me either. Personally, other then my parents, Jock, & Desiree all my friends are online. There is Rhea, of course, but she lives in Ireland and so we chat online. Otherwise, all my friends are online. So I guess I am like you, Rilla. I would rather sit at my computer and be online then go out and party with a bunch of people I don't know that well.
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I haven't really been blogging for very long (although I did have a very bad personal website when I was about 15), but nearly everyone who knows about is either noncommittal or mildy enthusiastic. Everyone already knows I'm a loser/weirdo/shutin/ with the social life of particularly ugly brick so I don't really think about it. I'm content in the sense that I try my best to not care what anybody who would condemn me for blogging has to say about anything.
Anyway, I am...I am a very nice guy, intelligent enough and I'm pretty gosh-darn funny and I love books and Star Wars and video games and cartoons. I am geeky, but not that stuckup annoying kind of geeky or the sad, pathetic kind of geeky. At least I don't think so >_>. I'm an English major! Who's more excited about his computer science class next semester than his one English class...I have a smattering of knowledge and a deficit of coordination. I'm a bundle of sticklimbs. I have poor fashion sense. Et cetera and so on, you know. -
I don't bring up internet stuff offline, actually. Mainly because I've never really run into any situation that would have actually made me talk about my online interests. My friends know I like the internet, but I've never actually really bothered sharing my websites with them, usually. My friends all know that if they ever need to find me, I'll be in front of my computer; but as far as what I'm doing in front of my computer, I don't think any of them really know.
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Me? I love blogging and computers but I do have a life too. I'm a high school sophomore who always crams my way out of the "great pile of projects".
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I know what you feel. People just don't understand. Not all internet people are bad, you know :| -
Oh, I get the same criticism from people I actually tell about my web blob. Now that I'm in college, I tend to stick with a geekier (and much cooler) crowd who wouldn't object to my bloginess. I've actually had many people who I work with google me (looking for car accident reports) and discover that I'm an actual blogger. My college adviser recently found my website and told me over the phone that I was an amazing writer and I should never stop. I think when I was younger I would (and did) get that, "you going to go talk to your online friends, how are they?". Now, my online friends and my "real" life have meshed together into my life. I don't know anyone (or at least keep company with anyone) who would judge me because I have a blog.
What's cool is there is this huge handful of us who have the same likes and dislikes and we're constantly finding each other through our blogs. People that I would have never met otherwise who end up moving to my home town and being my best friends (true story)... that's what I would have missed out on if I would have kept lukewarm relationships with friends who I didn't get along with. -
I find it beyond amusing when my friends assume that I have no life, and I just like to sit at home and play with coding while watching the time pass. Whenever I'm on the phone with one of my friends, she always says, "Why aren't you talking? Are you working on your website AGAIN? Or on another message board? You really need a life." I guess a lot of people just assume that owning an actual website that's not MySpace (GASP!) will take up all of your time, and you'll just become some lonely little loser spending your whole life on the computer.
Well, they can have their theories. I've had fun showing them my websites (when those were up and running) and seeing their faces change from bemusement to awe. (Not to say that I am some kind of graphic prodigy, but when people aren't used to seeing digital art, they can be amazed quite easily.)
Oh, and my parents share the same old-fashioned views as yours, concerning all those scary rapists and pedophiles online. My dad says that a picture will suffice to prove their identity, but if I say I've seen one, he assumes that it's a fake, and the real 60-year-old pervert is hiding behind the image of a 17-year-old high school student. *sigh* -
Psst, Rilla, you've been tagged
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I think that's awfully rude for people to think that about you. The thing is, I probably don't know how to relate, at least not now. I attend a school that is the recruitment central for that reality TV show, "Beauty and the Geek," and all I can is that they're definitely not here for the "beauties."
Anyway, my point is, people are going to judge, they're going to be stereotypical and think that web developers and bloggers are nerds, geeks, no-lifers. No matter who you may be, no matter what you do, once you slap that label on yourself, many will assume the worst.
Is it fair? Not exactly, but what else can you do to tell them otherwise? They're just going to close-minded about it.
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I'm a web designer, a Snark member, an art student trying to break into comic books, a lover of animals, an aspiring chef, a lover of classic books like Jekyll and Hyde, a writer of poetry and short stories, an owner/lover/driver of Mini's, a romantic at heart, a comic book geek, used in a lot of student photo shoots, from the cold north of Canada... I'm me. I am Spencer, and no I do not like it when my parents nag me about the computer or what I'm doing! Some of that stopped when I was like "Mum, I made an internet forum and a lot of my favorite artists from all over the world are joining" or "Mum, one of the biggest comic book publishers in the world just asked me to be part of an anthology" haha. I suppose I'm being productive "most" of the time on the internet in one way or another, although sometimes its also a place of refuge when the ordinary world is too irrational which it is wont to be.