So a short twitter conversation with the ever-so-delightful @GeekShui got me thinking about my incredibly irrational but wholly gigantic loathing for reblogging. What is reblogging, you ask? From my short and underwhelming experience with it, reblogging is as follows:
1) Find something interesting on the internet that someone else produced. An article, picture, video, what-have-you.
2) Click a little box and add it to your reblogging service "queue"
3) Reblogging service kicks up that link on your "blog" with little to no action taken by the "blogger"
4) Other "bloggers" that see your link and find it interesting click "add to MY queue" and the link is then posted to the next "blog". (Keep in mind there is often little-to-no context so sometimes it feels like you're walking into an inside joke that there is no way to ever understand.)
5) Wash, rinse, repeat
I may not have the mechanics quite down but the idea I'm getting at is this: sharing a link or a picture every once in a while is one thing, but doing nothing but posting links and pictures of other people's thoughts leads me to believe that there is not one unique idea running around in that person's head. I find that incredibly sad, and really rather alarming.
When I was growing up (oh, yeah, it's going to be one of those posts) I had my own thing going on that relates to this. Just work with me here for a second. I am a twin. Yes, we look similar but no, we are not identical. We sound the same over the phone, we make the same faces at people, we get called each other's names. That having been said, as a twin, I fought really really hard to distinguish myself from both my uterine roommate and the assumptions that people have about twins. The worst thing in my world at that time was being constantly referred to "the girls" or "the twins" because it meant that we were automatically lumped into one entity, everywhere, all the time. No matter that Amy (*waves* hi, squeeshtore!) and I were two people, we were often assumed to be one thing. My mom did a grand job of separatism but the people, they just sometimes don't care to understand. You come into the world as a pair, you are a pair*, that's just how it is in their minds. One card for our birthday, one present to share, one cake, that sort of thing. It's something that you can't explain, really, because it sounds kind of selfish and silly in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. Though I still get asked, "what's it like to be a twin?" all the freakin' time. You know what? I have no idea. I have no other siblings and have never been an only child so, ultimately, I have no frame of reference.
Anyhow, the point is that I have spent a great deal of time and energy developing this unique being that is Jenna. Yes, I like to share funny stories and wacky pictures and even blogs from other people. But I have worked too damn hard to have my own unique ideas and comments and thoughts to share. This is why the very idea of reblogging bothers me - it's sharing someone else's thought over and over, often without context or even clever commentary. Reblogging services may work well for Justin Bieber fans...there's only so many ways to say "he's dreamy" before a teenage mind explodes from the pressure of finding adjectives. I find it really bizarre that people who style themselves "bloggers" use this sort of thing at all, posting nothing but links to articles that they didn't even write! To me being a "blogger" means that you write stuff down that came from your own brain and then post it for people to read. Simple, really. Now I realize that I am making some broad generalizations, too, and that some people have turned reblogging into an art form. This post is not for them. Clearly.
It can be difficult to put yourself out there, to let other people read what you have to say. There's a certain vulnerability that one must figure out how to deal with and sometimes the internet is not a very nice place. I would rather be mocked for something that I said/typed off the top of my head, though, than to only share links to other people's words. And you may mock me for that, at least I had the courage to say it, even if I'm not as eloquent as a Justin Bieber fan.
*Don't get me started on the people that joke about having relations with a pair of hot twins - that's called incest. It's illegal and, um, EW.
1) Find something interesting on the internet that someone else produced. An article, picture, video, what-have-you.
2) Click a little box and add it to your reblogging service "queue"
3) Reblogging service kicks up that link on your "blog" with little to no action taken by the "blogger"
4) Other "bloggers" that see your link and find it interesting click "add to MY queue" and the link is then posted to the next "blog". (Keep in mind there is often little-to-no context so sometimes it feels like you're walking into an inside joke that there is no way to ever understand.)
5) Wash, rinse, repeat
I may not have the mechanics quite down but the idea I'm getting at is this: sharing a link or a picture every once in a while is one thing, but doing nothing but posting links and pictures of other people's thoughts leads me to believe that there is not one unique idea running around in that person's head. I find that incredibly sad, and really rather alarming.
When I was growing up (oh, yeah, it's going to be one of those posts) I had my own thing going on that relates to this. Just work with me here for a second. I am a twin. Yes, we look similar but no, we are not identical. We sound the same over the phone, we make the same faces at people, we get called each other's names. That having been said, as a twin, I fought really really hard to distinguish myself from both my uterine roommate and the assumptions that people have about twins. The worst thing in my world at that time was being constantly referred to "the girls" or "the twins" because it meant that we were automatically lumped into one entity, everywhere, all the time. No matter that Amy (*waves* hi, squeeshtore!) and I were two people, we were often assumed to be one thing. My mom did a grand job of separatism but the people, they just sometimes don't care to understand. You come into the world as a pair, you are a pair*, that's just how it is in their minds. One card for our birthday, one present to share, one cake, that sort of thing. It's something that you can't explain, really, because it sounds kind of selfish and silly in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. Though I still get asked, "what's it like to be a twin?" all the freakin' time. You know what? I have no idea. I have no other siblings and have never been an only child so, ultimately, I have no frame of reference.
Anyhow, the point is that I have spent a great deal of time and energy developing this unique being that is Jenna. Yes, I like to share funny stories and wacky pictures and even blogs from other people. But I have worked too damn hard to have my own unique ideas and comments and thoughts to share. This is why the very idea of reblogging bothers me - it's sharing someone else's thought over and over, often without context or even clever commentary. Reblogging services may work well for Justin Bieber fans...there's only so many ways to say "he's dreamy" before a teenage mind explodes from the pressure of finding adjectives. I find it really bizarre that people who style themselves "bloggers" use this sort of thing at all, posting nothing but links to articles that they didn't even write! To me being a "blogger" means that you write stuff down that came from your own brain and then post it for people to read. Simple, really. Now I realize that I am making some broad generalizations, too, and that some people have turned reblogging into an art form. This post is not for them. Clearly.
It can be difficult to put yourself out there, to let other people read what you have to say. There's a certain vulnerability that one must figure out how to deal with and sometimes the internet is not a very nice place. I would rather be mocked for something that I said/typed off the top of my head, though, than to only share links to other people's words. And you may mock me for that, at least I had the courage to say it, even if I'm not as eloquent as a Justin Bieber fan.
*Don't get me started on the people that joke about having relations with a pair of hot twins - that's called incest. It's illegal and, um, EW.
