Fences

I was thinking last night that not many people I know really keep blogs anymore. When I started using Tumblr, there was the overwhelming feeling that a lot of these people had migrated their digital lives from LiveJournal, occasionally Wordpress; consequently, there was a degree of comfortable isolation from one another that allowed us to approach one another as people first and content second. This might all be a view through rose-tinted glasses, of course. I’m sure that part of this is just growing up.

Having said all of that, though, there are a few things that have become more apparent as time’s gone by. It seems like a lot of people don’t really write blog posts anymore for the sake of just writing; there’s always a point they’re trying to get across, something they’re imploring you to do, or think, or say, or feel. Every individual experience becomes (and here’s the joke, are you ready) a comment about the world at large. Even the casual, everyday observations seem somewhat sculpted for an audience. If you try hard enough, you can even manufacture whimsy.

None of this is to say that I have to behave this way, and I’m not a naturally opinionated person - it’s rare that I write anything that even has the potential to upset someone, so I can rarely expect violent disagreement with anything I write. That does, theoretically at least, give me the space to carry on as I used to. And I probably will. It’s just a little strange when I’ve seen so many people drop off the map. There was a strange sense of community in the picket fences we set up at the boundaries of each online space, and sometimes I feel like the rise in anger and reactionary writing and thinkpieces and (oh god) “content” has all but drowned that community out.

I might be wrong, though. I’m willing to accept at least that much. It just feels harder nowadays to limit my exposure to noise, and I don’t get pulled in by people as much as I used to. And I do still try. I’ll keep trying. Maybe something will stick.