Jordon elaborates on the best metaphor for blogging that I've read:
I wonder if the reason we create these blogs is not so much to fulfill the promise of personal publishing but as an online place to hang out on a front porch. Maybe that's why so many people keep showing up and posting, we have loyalty to our community and our readers. Today I was at Market Mall and the place was packed with senior citizens drinking hundreds of cups of coffee. Why do they keep showing up? The uncomfortable chairs, the chance to chat with Wendy at Safeway? It's because of their friends and it drives coffee rows all over the world. Maybe that is what this is. We keep showing up everyday because we know that everyone else does and it makes us feel a little less alone.
I was reading a review of the new iLife last week, and it said that software has now made it possible for anyone to bore the rest of the world. In a way that's true, and many of the blogs I read (and write) are sort of boring in the same way that most of my conversations are boring. But they serve a bigger purpose, in that some of my strongest relationships today have been built over a series of relatively boring conversations.
I think Jordon hit the nail on the head. At least that is what blogging looks like to me...
It's too cold to sit out on the front porch in the winter. Too hot in the summer. I blog instead.
Maybe it's about sitting on each other's porch to scratch each other's back.
I wonder what that says about those who lurk but never comment?
Could they be likened to the folk who wander up and down the street in front of our "front porches" just waiting to be invited to come and sit with us a spell?
The sad thing is - we ARE alone while blogging and we think that because we sit alone in a room typing messages to other people who are alone, that we are not alone. Anonymous conversation from (sometimes)vast distances can never be a substitute for personal face to face interaction that involves touching, facial expression, rapid repartee without cute little symbols to help explain ourselves. It is virtual community and it is a sad replacement for the real thing. For those who know there is something better and yet settle for this because of circumstances we should be thankfully understanding. But for those of us who really think this is social interaction - we are of all people most pitiable.
"For those who know there is something better and yet settle for this because of circumstances we should be thankfully understanding."
Yes, the virtual front porch has its value, but it will never be as good as the real thing.