Internet blog

The internet has become an established media form. One wonderful thing about it is that in principle you can gain access to just about anything (although perhaps there are certain classes of things which remain elusive to the internet, so it would be interesting to see what those things might be). Although I prefer books whenever possible (possibly now something that we can consider an old-fashioned attachment, and possibly something that might be bad for the environment [notwithstanding the use of electricity to run the internet, compared to these other activities] if we insist on cutting down more paper trees, although we could stop printing new books and content ourselves with the current supply, which might suddenly take on a different value in this scenario); as I say, although I prefer books, I do still do a certain amount of reading on the internet, especially if there’s something that I need to find out about now or can’t access in another way, or is something relatively short, like an essay or a column. This form, the short essay, might be the best literary form with respect to the transition into a media world that includes the internet, the form which made the transition with the most ease. The blog post, a quintessential internet form, is like a short (sometimes the shortest) essay. Posts on social media, or tweets, or text messages, or comments, are the shortest of statements, and begin to blur the line between what needs to be said in print versus what can be spoken. If I’m texting someone or leaving a comment with them, I might as well be sending them a postcard or a telegram through the internet, or talking to them. 

Anyway, most of what can be said has probably already been said, or goes without saying. The point is that if someone is writing something on the internet, it’s probably a blog post or else a comment or an email. There are different levels of privacy involved with who you are trying to communicate with. With blog posts, one imagines that you have some kind of at least somewhat amorphous audience, one that might not necessarily be (but no doubt is) limited. These posts can be about anything, but there is some sense that the form is relatively ephemeral, and so should be about whatever is timely just at the moment. Everything that is recorded or kept becomes what we call “recorded history,” and so is valuable, like a diary entry, for reminding us of what was happening on a particular day.