In terms of internet fads, I highly doubt that Blogger will be able to compete with the popularity of Facebook, now or ever, but it is a nice subculture. Private enough to let me maintain my sense of anonymity, but public enough for me to know that my words might actually fall on listening ears (or eyes, as it were).
The convenience in things like Blogger is that they do give one that sense of facelessness. It's liberating to know that it's possible to say anything, and have it be read, but not face any dire consequences from it. Unless, of course, the writer is one of those who uses names and specifics. Livejournal put my fourteen-year-old ass in a lot of hot water for that very reason. But I've grown up, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The cattiness of adolescent drama is a thing of the past for most of us.
We are a generation of pseudo-intellectuals. We want so desperately to have something to say, a reason to be heard. Whether we actually have that or are just pretending is up to the reader to decide. I'll be the first to admit that the vast majority of the time, I only pretend that I have something profound to say. But I do a damn good job of convincing my (however miniscule) audience that what I say is important, if I do say so myself. Everyone wants to be profound. Everyone wants to appear as though there is more than meets the eye; nobody wants to be judged on a surface level alone. Because let's face it...for the most part, the surface sucks.
The problem with us is that very few of us actually are any of those things.
Maybe it's not just my generation. Maybe life is just a series of pretending to be different things. As little kids we wore our mothers' shoes and our fathers' ties and pretended we were bigger than we were. Now we wear our blog posts on our sleeves and still pretend we're something bigger.
We all want to be just one more voice in the chorus, one more face in the crowd.
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