Guess what, guys? According to RuthAnne and Stella, blogging is "a cry for help" and a sign that someone has a problem!!! Yay for us sick fucks!!!!
The whole conversation started because we had to put a couple of kids out of our program for inappropriate 'net use. Apparently one girl was chronicling her camp experience on her Xanga--using real names, which if you ask me was her big mistake--but describing her fellow campers, activities. thoughts, things that were going on behind the scenes. RuthAnne was telling us a little bit of the story when Stella chimed in, with a very concerned look on her face, saying "That's the sign of some real problems--seeking out attention like that."
(So apparently every public personality, every autobiographer since the history of time, has mental problems. Oh, wait--no, they don't---it's just "this generation" that has them, apparently.)
And so the two of them go back and forth about the scourge of blogging, how "these kids think they're just putting their thoughts on 'paper' for their FRIENDS, so they don't have to individually e-mail their friends, but don't make the connection that ten million people can read them..." (Um, hello--does anyone think kids are really THAT stupid?? Especially THESE kids??? This is an entire generation raised on reality shows and Jerry Springer. They've come up seeing that "exposure=esteem of others". What in the world would make you think they WEREN'T trying to put themselves out there?? Putting your life out there for all to see is practically a rocket-sled to fame and fortune, as this culture sees things--and make no mistake, these are children of our culture!)
After the first sentence or two, I made a weak protest against their "something must be wrong with them" stance--I said "Blogging??? that's like one of the most common forms of communication for their generation--a whole LOT of kids have blogs..." But--as is usual with both of them, even Stella who I love to death--they had their minds made up and they weren't going to hear anything that didn't agree with them. So I stopped talking and started listening to them sum up bloggers--and, by extension, me.
So why AM I doing this? Am I looking for fame? Am I so naive that I don't realize that someone could take all the little bits of data I've put here, glue them together, and figure out who I am? What's my freakin' deal, anyway???
Answers, in order:1-- I'm doing this a) for philosophical reasons, b) to help me clear my mind and deal with all the garbage that I can't otherwise seem to process effectively; c) just in case someone might be interested enough to offer me a book deal and thus make me famous. (Hey, at least I admit it); and d) to articulate a belief system and the circumstances of a place that doesn't often get heard from in this medium. (How many blogs are there on the West Side? Of those, how many come from the 'hood--even if they ARE written by a college-educated white chick?) 2--Yes, I am, as articulated above, looking for fame, yes. But only a little, and I don't think I'd like it much if I DID get it. 3--I am nowhere near that naive. And I don't believe my readers are so naive that they don't realize that though the facts and stories of this blog are absolutely real, the details have almost certainly been changed. I'm assuming you all just take that as an article of faith. 4--My freakin' deal right now, if we're going to be perfectly blunt, is that I haven't been laid in weeks and it's starting to affect my thought processes. THAT's my freakin DEAL, buster, and if you don't like it.... Oh. Sorry. Crabbiness, you know....from the not-getting-laid....)
If anything, though, this has reinforced my notion that I'm on an entirely different wavelength than almost everyone I know. The things they want are different from the things I want; the things they fear are different from the things I fear. Things I take for granted as a part of my daily routine are entirely foreign to them, and strange. It's a very lonely feeling, really, when you come down to it.
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