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April 01, 2005
to be or not to be private?
one decision I have yet to make in how I approach this blogging thing is how private I want to be with this. Obviously, by the domain name itself, I can't go the way of the completely anonymous blog. Nor do I think that is feasible. When I like to write, I like it just to flow out, to work on my writing voice, to pour my thoughts onto this medium. If I try to be conscious of things like "do i use initials here instead of names?" and "will people find out too much about me?" then I feel it will throw off my writing groove to keep stopping and thinking about these things.
also, from a casual perusal of other blogs that I like to read, not to be sexist, but it appears that a lot more female bloggers feel the need to be more private than male bloggers. i'm pretty sure that percentage-wise, there are more male stalkers out there than female stalkers. Or at the very least, females are more conscious of "unwanted" attention from males.
Its amazing how empowering that Internet anonymity is, both in a good way and in a bad way. People who would never say certain things in person find that if they don't have to face someone, they can be an entirely different persona. Hence, you get a lot of people who talk a big game online, and are someone that they normally aren't. At the same time, its this faceless anonymity that encourages people to blog in the first place. If this was viewed as a speaking engagement in front of an audience, I doubt many people who blog would be as forthcoming about themselves and their lives. But because I don't know who is reading this (or if anyone is), it allows me to feel free to write more openly. So I guess it cuts both ways.
Posted by spoof747 at April 1, 2005 11:27 AM