What struck me most about these three blog posts is how much you had to be "in the know" to really understand them. I feel that this is often the case with blogs. In my experience blogs generally have well informed or "in-tune" followers that know a bit about the content of the blog or at least have interests in common or an appreciation of the angle the blogger takes.
In Davidson's "STRAUSS-KAHN’S NAKED CHALLENGE" I was thrown around by Davidson's tone and lack of deeper explanation about the "scandal" between Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the maid that was raped. I felt distracted and manipulated. Because I had so little to go off from this post I felt myself just siding with Davidson without even knowing anything of substance. The quotes make his lawyer's argument seem extremely pathetic, bringing me back once again to the realization that I am being VERY manipulated as a reader. I felt the same thing while being enlightened about Baby Blue Ivy Carter.
Beyonce and Jay-Z had a baby and decided to name Blue Ivy Carter?!?! Whoa! News to me. Have I been under a rock? While reading Solomon's critique of/comparison of the image of black people through a very specific lens that compared online comments/opinions of the looks of Beyonce and Jay-Z's new baby and the looks of "Maude Martha" by Gwendolyn Brooks. Whoa again! Talk about specific angle and needing to know inside knowledge. I found myself having to google "Blue Ivy Carter" because I didn't even know the baby had been born let alone that that was its name and I don't know the blogger enough to trust that she is honest (which speaks volumes to me about the medium of blogging). I also had to google "Maude Martha" because I had never heard of the book. I felt like the comparison between the harsh critiques of the looks of black people was a bit out there given the sources, one a novel, and the other, online comments regarding Baby Blue.
Of all the blogs I liked "Writing Memoir? Use the Algorithm and act Like Galileo in Walmart" the best because I, as a writer, felt invested in what Smith was talking about. I want to know about writing memoirs and I understood the Galileo in Walmart reference. I felt chills when I read, "'Show, don’t tell.” Don’t tell me it was sad; show me how sadness looks, and let me do the math."Oh," I should say to myself at the end of your piece, “now that’s sad.'” Isn't that what all writers chase after? Portraying the human condition so beautifully that the reader just connects without feeling the writer straining behind the words? The fact that I liked this blog goes back to what I was saying about the reader needing to feel invested in the subject of the blog and the tone of the blogger.
Reading these blogs has made me see blogging in a new light. First I want to pick the blogs I follow because I want to be interested in what they say, two I want to trust the blogger so I don't need to go in constant search of verification, and three, I want to feel "in the know". It just isn't pleasant reading informal writing about something you know little about.
I like your comment about needing to trust he blogger, I hadn't realized how often I was thinking to myself "how do they know." I also felt super out of the know/under a rock about a lot of the info in the first two blogs you wrote about and found myself doing more goggling than I'd like to admit. Blogs do seem to be for extremely specific audiences and they expect thir readers to be very up to date!
ReplyDeleteI think the New Yorker piece ties into what we learned in Dave Donahue's class about NYT letters to the editor. The more exclusionary your writing is -- both in language and context-- the more highly regarded it is. I can just imagine the writer at a cocktail party: "Surely you've heard of..." and another, less sophisticated guest nodding in false accord.
ReplyDeleteIt seems there are multiple layers of "in the know." There is the pop culture aspect, and the area of interest.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about being unhappy with the blog on the naked challenge reminded me of why it was so confusing in the first place to understand what our assignment for our class was. They are often blurps of opinion which don't have a real format. Blog for me means talk about what ever you want and hopefully people will be interested. Its difficult to blog about blogs and kind of annoying.