In the section, "The Intended Audience", South wrote about the way in which published diary/blog content on the internet will ultimately be found by someone, but the intended audience for the content on these kinds of platforms are simply ourselves. We begin with a thought, we write it out to whatever extent we want to deliberate on, we post it, and leave it. Even on a public website, the action was taken for ourselves, first. The next consumers are whoever follow or subscribe to the blog, and they sometimes act as a filter to how we write, in styles of writing and in the views we take.
South mentions Livejournal and describes it as an old website thats collected teen angst and victory, and of her old blog she kept romantic letters archived in. This immediately made me think of my first blog(s), which were similar, in that they started as diaries. The only one I still use has evolved past personal, written, posts, and is now a sort of generator for other blogs' content; I just process information and pass it on. However, there isn't much stopping someone from just going back to when it was a diary, and I can still search for my deleted blog's title on Google and old content comes up.
To connect this with identity, it's rather like looking into a time machine and seeing my previous versions of myself. Though it's incredibly public, it was a safe space for me to express the troubles I found myself in and the self-discoveries I made, in growing up. This kind of self-reflection on identity is pretty important, because once I'm past the embarrassment of my younger self, I can tell how I've grown and why. The idea that someone might see that, too, gives me hope that they might learn from my past.
No comments:
Post a Comment