On Blogging

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I feel like I’m a fish, stuck in a fish bowl. Only instead of being shocked by the same weed, in the same corner every time I swim past it, I continue to have the same conversation, about the same things over and over.

2009: Are bloggers ethical?

2010: Are bloggers ethical?

2011: Are bloggers ethical? (With a side dish of hand wringing and oh, won’t someone please, think of the community?)

Yet, here we are, in 2012, having the same old conversation, over and over. Ethics! Advertorial! Won’t someone think of the children!

The thing is, each time this conversation is raised, the people who raised it seem to think that they are the first to have noticed that bloggers occasionally run disclosed advertorial. They think that this is NEW NEWS and we’re all going to be shocked by their revelations.

Extra extra, read all about it: Sometimes personal bloggers get PAID to write about things! SHOCK! HORROR! HYPERBOLE!

And maybe they’re shocked by what they’re realising about blogging, but to everyone else this is old news, churned out in the same old way, bringing up the same old complaints, from the same old corners of the Internet.

Round in a circle we go, attacking and blaming, defending and discussing.

Are we ethical? What are the pitfalls of selling our writing space? Can we ever be trusted again? Insert hand wringing and a fainting couch here.

Uuuuuugh. Groan. <— This is me curling up in the corner with a headache and a block of chocolate. A block of chocolate I didn’t have to pay for, just to rub salt into the wounds here. Can you feel it burn?

Frankly, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the fishbowl conversations and the writers who think that they’ve suddenly discovered a Brand! New! Thing! and the detractors (“mums should be playing with their children, not writing online”) and the hangers on trying to leverage traffic (“you’re creating a MORAL PANIC”) and just everything.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who liked to tell stories. She told so many stories, with so many millions of words that eventually, someone asked to buy some of her blog space. Carefully she considered and agreed, disclosing to her readers that these particular words had been paid for. Everyone rejoiced. There was no Armageddon, no moral panic and the girl who liked to tell stories bought herself a new book to read, some fancy tea and fluffy socks. Also, power for the house and nappies, because this isn’t a fucking fairytale.

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On the Internet, every day, thousands of anonymous comments are left. Trolls and pseudonyms, all mixed up in a giant stew of anonymity, hiding behind a false name and a false face.

Sometimes, one of those comments is left on a blog of mine and oooof, goes the wind out of my sails, because accusatory comments are unpleasant, at best. Usually, anons cover their tracks well enough, but sometimes, an IP address is left unblocked and there is a virtual paper trail left to follow.

This is what happened to me a little while ago. I followed a virtual paper trail and found my anonymous commenter in a place where they really weren’t anonymous at all. I screenshotted the evidence and spent three days, riding the high of “I worked out who you are” before crashing back down to earth because, “I worked out who you are”.

It’s never nice discovering who dislikes you enough to say unpleasant things, hiding behind an assumed name and a veil of pseudo-anonymity.

**

I’m a nice person. I’m kind to animals, I smile at strangers. I offer to help people when they drop the contents of their purse on the supermarket floor and I will willingly give support to someone who needs it.

I genuinely like people. I like hearing your stories and listening to your experiences.

I am a good person.

I also tell the truth, stand up for myself when I think things are unfair and refuse to stay silent if I think something is a problem.

Being kind and being strong, these are not mutually exclusive things – however, being truthful on the Internet, being strong and standing up and saying there is a problem – this is not what people want you to do.

No, it seems that people want happy happy joy joy and silently whispered conversations. They don’t want to know what I truly think.

Taylor Mali said: I implore you. I entreat you. I challenge you. To speak with conviction. To say what you believe in, in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it.

[vimeo source]

Those words have stuck with me. I have the courage to own my own convictions. To stand behind my words and to say what I feel, when I feel it.

And I would like to not be ostracised for daring to have an opinion.

Because from where I stand, that’s what it feels like.

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