The Blogger Is Not Real

by DShan on November 5, 2009

Tagged as: bloggers, blogs, relationships

Post image for The Blogger Is Not Real

“it’s an opportunity to explain that the blog is built from your life – life as inspiration – but that in fact it’s a construct. truth in a fictional form. or a fiction that’s built from truth.”

- a quote from a reader at this blog.

Every blog is its own little world.

Some are little worlds; written for the author’s enjoyment or a compulsion to keep a running tab on events and fleeting thoughts attached to those events.  I think nearly every personal blog lives an early life this way, unless its author was an avid paper diarist.

Some are conversations, and in their attempts to share they reflect a conscious effort to create a world that involves others; something that fosters a mutual understanding, sense of humor, or struggle.  It’s a call to the crowd, and the world it represents takes form as the author shapes their conversation with whomever will listen.

Questions and answers.  Giveaways, stunts, memes, nicknames, drama, and support.  They manifest as the participants in each throbbing little bubble grow into one another.

Finally, some blogs become something else altogether.

They become a desperate, driven attempt to communicate the human life, in one form or another, much bigger than any audience member or author.  They are a stab at the truth; whatever that truth may be for each particular crowd.  The words are chosen because they’re part of the voice, and the voice is something that found the author…something the whole construct has a measure of control over.

We, as authors, bloggers…we are not who our blogs say we are.

We are not what the reader sees.

We are often, albeit not always, the lead character in these fictional worlds.  We are the ones doing our damndest to find truths to keep building on.

But we are not who you think we are.

It’s incredibly important to remember that.

No matter who you are in whatever world you happen to be in at the moment.

For bloggers, how are you different than your blog says you are?

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You should also leave a comment.

  • "We are not who our blogs say we are."

    So well said. But we've also written the words we write for a reason; we've constructed ourselves and dictated the way people see us through the lens of the Internet. We control our emotions, calculate our thoughts to cater to an invisible audience. Or we let it all go, relying on the anonymity to provide us with a safe release valve.

    We aren't who our blogs say we are -- we're so much more.
  • I'm with you on this. What I write IS calculated and thought out. But I truly hope that when people know me well offline, they believe that what they read online is an honest representation of who I am. The most important thing about my online writing is that it is genuine. I almost obsess over it. Of course, it's not ALL I am. Like Jenn said, "we're so much more," and there is plenty that happens in my life and in my head that doesn't ever see a "publish" button. But what you do see? As thoughtfully as it's put out there, it's me. At least one shade of me.
  • The fact that what we write isn't everything we are definitely doesn't
    undermine the level of honesty those words may represent. The most genuine
    writers are still a lot more than what they might produce on paper or
    online. Far more complex...and different in really simple ways too.
  • Well said. That's exactly it...our blog makes us a blogger, but offline
    we're ourselves. The blogger is a part (big or small) of us. Not the
    whole.
  • Isn't this true for every type of communication you take part in?

    In person, at parties for example, you might present a socially constructed self that is calculated--fake. But even when being authentic and open during a long conversation with a close friend, the sharing of your thoughts and ideas never reveals the entirety of who you are.

    I find that writing enables me to dig more deeply into who I am and what I think. The blog just makes it easier to share that deeper part of me with everyone else. It is tempting to be false and try to present a "prettier" version of who I really am, but I constantly remind myself that being genuine and honest is more important to me. So, I choose to show my warts and all.
  • You're totally right...there are huge parallels between the ways we interact
    in person and online. Writing is a great way to 'record' yourself, as
    accurately as you can.

    Thanks for stopping by:)
  • When I write on my blog, I find myself working out what's going on in my life and discovering the wisdom and empathy and understanding I wish I had in the moment the nrest of the time.
  • Well said. Writing can be an out of body experience sometimes, I think.
  • I'm right there with you on this. Writing out a situation gives me a little more perspective when I think I have to explain it all to people who weren't there and really do need to see both sides of things. It cools me off and helps me react better.
  • I love how writing makes us take a perspective. We can ignore that internally very easily and just let things muster.
  • My blog, twitter & youtube channel is an extension of my life. What you see in my web persona is exactly how you would see me in real life.
  • An extension. YES. I love that.
  • Basically, it's who I am. It makes me complete.
  • Having met you, I can say that your web persona is just a part of who you
    are. Maybe I'm wrong, because I don't know you the way I know my best
    friends, but I'd imagine that someone on the other side of the world who
    took in all your content would still have quite an adjustment period when it
    came to really getting to know you.

    It's just not possible to BE the person your output makes you out to be.

    This says nothing of the influence that each audience member's biases and
    influences bring to the interaction.
  • I agree. I try to be true to myself on my blog, but people always interpret me differently. It's hard to reconcile who we are on blogs with who we are in real life - blogs often just tell a portion of the story.

    Thanks for a great post!
  • It's just the fact that our content isn't who we are...it's an effort to
    project ourselves and find some truth or effect or impact. It's just a
    piece of the whole picture.

    Imagine dating someone purely online.
  • I love this post.

    I'm much more introverted/a homebody than my blog would make it seem. And my sex life is not nearly as exciting.
  • Way to ruin everyone's days, Joy.

    (And thanks for the compliment:))
  • Very well put. Like phampants, my blog/tumblr/facebook are an extension of me, but at the same time they are just a narrative that features a version of me as the main character. Some parts of me are turned up, some toned down. The real TOPolk -- or Terence -- lies somewhere in the middle of all of that and he's holding a bad of hidden secrets that dare not see the light of the Internet.
  • Haha...secrets are the best part though! Your readers want the dirt!

    We are all characters here.
  • "We, as authors, bloggers…we are not who our blogs say we are. It’s incredibly important to remember that."

    Exactly. It's too easy to take the person as their blog represents them, but people are much more than that, no matter how much you think you relate or understand them.
  • I've seen it happen so many times. The quote I put up there, from Raymi's
    blog, struck me because Raymi is probably one of the most prolific online
    diarists there is...multiple posts daily, hundreds of pictures and
    self-portraits a week. It's been her thing for years...total immersion.
    It's made her an online celebrity.

    Yet, she just went through a terrible breakup, and she (and her more
    insightful readers) found herself looking at the gap between the person her
    audience might see and the person she saw and felt in private.

    Here's the internet's best example of putting it ALL out there, and she's
    telling her audience "listen, I am not exactly, to every detail, who and
    what you make me out to be".
  • Her recent posts about her breakup are why she is the best diarist. So honest and raw.
  • What you get from me online is 100% me, but you don’t get 100% of me.

    With that said, I think my blog represents who I am pretty well, with the exception that I don't verbalize my feelings "in real life" anywhere nearly as much as I'm able to do in my writing.
  • "What you get from me online is 100% me, but you don’t get 100% of me."

    WELL PUT.

    And I do think some writers (yourself included) do a great job of
    self-representation. Those writers have a voice, generally, and fall into
    that third category here and there when they realize that doing a decent job
    of engaging other people by writing start to become a bigger thing than just
    recounting your life accurately.
  • chrissyisawesome
    First, I <3 phampants.

    I will admit, my blog is WAY toned down from what I am. I generally try and stay uh...'family-friendly'/I won't be embarrassed if the head of my 'traditional' engineering company reads this.

    Twitter and facebook however...for some reason I feel like those are more of a free for all...anybody else feel this way? I have no idea where I got that idea.
  • I have some offline friends who feel the same way; especially Twitter. I think it's because it's a conversation, rather than a pure one-stop 'this is me' piece of content.

    I also think that the longer I blog, the more it's become about conveying ideas or feelings in a way that creates feedback, conversations, or relationships. Somehow that's actually made this LESS toned down than I think it was early on. It's almost like; now that I'm out there I might as well try to be myself as best I can.
  • I'm kind of the opposite, because my family doesn't know about my blog but they did friend me on Facebook - so I have to watch it on there and I can say whatever I want on the blog or Twitter.
  • Well, since I've been writing for so long, and writing online since 1995, I'd say what I present at this point is exactly what I want to present. There is some self-editing, but -- and you know this since we've hung out a number of times -- I'm pretty much exactly like in person what you would expect me to be like if you regularly read my blog.
  • I totally agree. I don't mind saying that I consider you to be an example of the right way to write online. You go at it, cut to the quick, speak your mind, and write with confidence and comfort. You have a great sense of this whole concept, the presentation of ourselves on mediums like this.
  • Why thanks! The bag of cash I promised you for writing that is hidden in the secret door of that dumpster behind your building...
  • Sweet! Cash is king.
  • It's interesting that you brought this idea forward today. I'm working on my NaNoWriMo novel and it has a touch of this theme - people meeting via blogs and email and expressing themselves different ways to different people without even realizing that they're doing it. Fear of being who you're not, or fear of being who you ARE - and then the progression from the broader-based relationships in blog posts and Tweets to the more personal aspects revealed in emails and other 1-1 interactions.

    I'm not sure how the noveling part of it will turn out, but it's a topic that's been on my mind for awhile.
  • I'm always curious to see how new technologies manifest themselves in literature. The next great American novel...how high tech will it be?
  • Well, if that Great American Novel is mine* - not very! Unless it goes onto Kindle. That might be about it.

    (*highly unlikely)
  • I agree with what Phampants said: My blog is an extension of my life.

    But that is all it is, the extension. It's not all of me, but it is a part of me. So for a reader that may possibly meet me or maybe has met me have come to realize that for a blogger with many words, I'm rather quiet in person and my personality is completely lacking in my blog. But at the same time, they know that part of me that I write about, my interests, my activities, etc. Pieces of my life. An extension. Like an extra limb.
  • I think especially for more introverted people, their words stamp out a path towards who they might be beyond just meeting them for the first time. They'll always have their internal world, but something like a blog allows them to open up with a moat of security between them and audience.
  • ToKissTheCook
    I'm not quite so PG in real life. A little bawdier, a little brash and far less edited. Not edited in the typo sense though. Those happen in real life too. I also require more quiet time that TKTC insinuates. 3-4 days a week I come home from work to a quiet house on purpose.
  • Oh, how awesome you are offline. How'd that pitch go, btw?
  • ToKissTheCook
    BTW, we won it :) Will be in touch once we kick off...
  • Oh lord. My blog is such a mish mosh of stuff that comes from me, but doesn't represent me as a whole. Some of my thoughts, words, stem from such a place that often gets misinterpreted, which kinda comes with the territory. But I like that because I think it's nice when people read something and come to their own conclusion. But that's just it. It's their conclusion. Not mine. I know where my thoughts come from and I'm okay with not letting everyone in on my ideas if they have a different interpretation. I guess that's part of the reason I'm often vague. It's a way for me to remember and share yet still keep bits to myself.
  • It's managing perception and your relationship with your audience. It's making your blog what you want it be. I do think it's nice to see how people will perceive the things you choose to put out there...usually it's not what I expect at all.

    I kind of thought people would hate this post, for instance. Not that it's loved, but no one has said it was unfounded and totally confusing, which is something I thought might get said.
  • I'm loving coming back and reading these comments and this conversation. As this medium evolves and social media and blogging continue to grow, how are they going to continue to impact our perceptions of each other?

    Interesting things to chew on, D. Thanks for sparking the conversation.
  • I have to live my professional life in public. There is soooo much missing from my blog from my day-to-day life. I have to blog by a certain code of conduct. I don't have the freedom that an anon-blogger has. Blogging, for me, is fun because it's a challenge.

    But, I suppose, there are artful ways of establishing mystery.

    So I say this because I wonder: who am I in public? And who am I in private?

    Thought-provoking post, for sure. Totally a keeper, and I'm Delicious'ing this.
  • justatitch
    While I don't feel as if I present myself differently than I am in person, I agree with you to some extent. I think the distinction I make is that most things I don't write about are less about ME and more about the fact that my boyfriend, parents, family, etc. are uncomfortable with me posting the "nitty gritty." And yes, it's calculated to some degree---I just try and give the highlights, if you will.
  • raeleighbsg
    i feel like you're saying that there's MORE to us than we read on each other's blogs, but i'm not sure that i agree with that being the same thing as not knowing each other. i mean, yeah, you guys don't know me like, say, my roommates do, but that's because they're with me day in and day out. and trust me, if i put everything on my blog, it would be a snooze fest. but that doesn't mean that what i DO put on there isn't 100% me.

    i tend to be more forthcoming on twitter, because it's blocked and i have very few "in real life" people on there -- and the ones i do, i know love all the horrible things about me. i put very little about me on facebook -- mostly because i have a TON of work people on there.
  • JHepCat72
    DShan, Love this post. Relate to the max. Thanks!
  • i am exactly on my blog how i am in real life. i am brash i am brazen and i speak my mind. those that read my blog actually know more about me and what's going on with me in life than my real life friends do.

    but what you say is very intriging and i can completely understand where you are coming from and i believe that a lot of bloggers probably pain themselves in a different light whether it is intentional or not.
  • It's interesting to me that some people saw this as a challenge to their authenticity online, and others didn't.

    Anyone that hasn't met me face to face could read every single post I ever published, but they wouldn't really know me until they could see my face light up when I recognize them in a crowd, or the tremble in my hand as I pick up my glass. They haven't seen me, taken in my scent and posture, my tone and inflection. You can have an intimate understanding of someone's thoughts, feelings, experiences and personality from reading their blog posts. That doesn't mean you *know* them. So much of the information we take in about someone is subconscious, and we don't have the data for that level of knowing without being able to hear them laugh, or feel their knee under our palm while we're emphasizing a point.

    The most authentic bloggers might give you all the parts, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and it is that "gap" or difference that we gain from meeting in person.

    ps: i love being late to the party. ;)
  • Well put...there's a huge up to meeting someone in person, even having read
    them for years. It fills in some personality gaps and adds dimension to a
    two-dimensional interaction.

    Looking forward to meeting you!
  • So well said - concise and eloquent in a way I could have never managed...

    And of course, about a topic with which we all deal. I twittered last week about it, in fact - I think I wrote something like "Please don't fall in love with the online version; the real thing just isn't as cool."

    So anyway - point is, thanks for writing it in a way that doesn't depress, but instead inspires...
  • I think I saw that tweet. There is an element sometimes that makes our
    online personas a little cooler than we really are, right?
  • You will always be anon on the internet, no matter how much you try to be transparent. Everyone preaches that they are the same person they are online, but no one can tell when I´m online that I'm grumpy because I got up @ 5am.

    It should be akin to Fight Club 'You are not your fucking khakis' You are NOT your blog. You are you.
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