on blogging

Blogger Emily Gould recently published an essay in the New York Times Magazine about being an extremely self-disclosing blogger, about blogging nastily on Gawker and about how this affected her life. (Not in a positive fashion, ultimately.)

I read the whole thing, long as it is, and found it compelling because I blog, because I am conflicted about the nasty blogs (like Jezebel, which is published by the Gawker people) and because I am slightly repelled by the TMI in some blogs.

Honestly—y’all don’t know from TMI here. Or if you do think you get TMI here, then you’re exceedingly sensitive. I used to subscribe to one MySpace blog—consistently the most popular on the site—that I finally unsubscribed to after a discussion of the blogger's most private of private bits. Yeah, that's TMI for me. As I promised when I launched this blog: You will never hear about my sex life or private bits here. I'm featureless as Barbie as far as you're concerned.

Part of Gould’s story involved blogging about her boyfriend, who took offense at one of her posts. She argued freedom of expression and he gave in, but the relationship didn't last.

Tom knows that if I plan to discuss him in any way that might risk his privacy or dignity, I'll run the post by him for approval. (Jack, however, has to live with whatever I feel like writing about him.) I don't think he's ever refused to let me write something and if he ever does, I'll respect that. I play fast and loose with my own privacy but with no one else's. Except Jack. But he gave up his privacy the first time he licked his ass in public. (Hm, right after I finished typing that sentence, he got up and left the room. Maybe I underestimated his sensitivity.)

Anyway, Gould’s NYT article got a large and vitriolic response. Among the 1,200-plus comments:

stop polluting ,find another job

Dear Emily,
What a sorry little cyberworld you chose to live in. Do you have a real life as well? or is this all you have? You are just a stupid little girl. Go watch the sun set and grow up!

I expect more from the New York Times. This article was nothing more than the ramblings of a moronic juvenile who calls herself a writer. I hope that the New York Times is not paying her for this piece. I long for the days when writers were people who had something to say.

Wow. People took all that time to read what she had to say, go online, and insult her. Shouldn’t they be outside watching the sun set or something?

As with so many other aspects of modern life, we seem to be deeply conflicted about blogging. I’m supposed to feel a little bit ashamed of this hobby. I’m a little sheepish when I mention it to people.

Yet millions of people read blogs and, although tech review blogs top most lists, snotty and TMI blogs tend to be very widely read. (What was Sex and the City but a pre-blogging blog?)

People enjoy voyeurism but when they feel shame about that, they lash out at the exhibitionist instead of kicking their own curious asses.

When I was at the newspaper, my personal essays elicited far greater response than any of my straight features stories. Although Paula LaRoque (hisssssssssssssss) never missed an opportunity to chastise me for using self-referential pronouns, readers seemed to enjoy those articles. What a shocker it was for me when I went freelance and editors started specifically requesting first-person from me. You mean … somebody really does care about me? But LaRoque told me again and again that NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK!

And now, personal blogging is called a form of self-medication in research discussed in this Scientific American article

This is interesting but not surprising. Now-classic research by psychologist James Pennebaker at UT found that student who wrote on personal topics, even if no one ever reads what they wrote, got sick less frequently than control groups. In other words, self-disclosure is good for you.

However, the term "self-medicating" seems patronizing in this context. Is anything pleasurable to be considered self-medication? I don’t really feel like I’m medicating anything. I’m just having fun and doing what I do. Or maybe I have hydergraphia, which the article defines as “an uncontrollable urge to write.” Sure, let’s pathologize a perfectly respectable passion.

In her essay, Emily Gould was hard on herself for the degree to which she exposed herself to the world. To some extent, her excessive self-disclosure may have been a function of her youth. In your 20s, one tends to believe one’s every thought worthy of broadcast. Blogging and other forms of online disclosure are just the newest form of youthful indiscretion.

But that so many people read Gould's essay and then beat her up for it is confusing.

Maybe it’s not those of us who enjoy publicly expressing our thoughts who need a life. Maybe the people who really need to get out more are the ones who waste energy hating us.

P.S. Read Gould's thoughtful responses to her readers questions and criticisms.