Pinkie’s Realm

 Upon reading Emily Nussbaum’s essay, “My So-Called Blog”, I have to say I was filled with mixed emotions. I found that her essay was much more interesting and involving, considering the amount of interactive research she did involving the online worlds of young teens. It was especially refreshing to read after reading the majority of rest of the book which mostly concentrated on politics, business, media and culture aspect of blogging. However, I found her essay was much more relevevant to pre-teens, young teens, and online journals, than the actual blogging world. This being said, I do think it’s important ot remember that there is a younger population using online journals and web logs out there that are indeed less concerned with politics and culture, and more concerned with communication and entertainment. 

Though I respect her motives and opinions and her various conclusions about the young American population, I find much of what she says to be stereotypical and biased. Humans in general, let alone teenagers, can simply not be generalized. There is a period of maybe 2-3 years in which teenagers are mildly obsessed with instant messsaging and online diaries (notice I didn’t say blogs). These online diaries are where people generally record what they do day to day, and are far more personal than blogs. Blogs are more informational, political, and often are used as means of recording interesting and helpful accounts of experiences and research. These diaries are where kids friend request each other, communicate kindly and sometimes harshly with each other, where kids can check off their mood for their day, and receive eProps for popular posts. These are things you don’t find among highly respected blogs across the internet. I think being a young adult as I am, and having grown up in the ‘digital revolution’ as many call it, I have more of a hold on how teenagers work. Not all teenagers use these diaries and pour their highly personal lives out onto it. I myself have a blog in which I offer information on the various products I’ve tested and researched involving video games and cosmetics…diverse, interesting, informational, helpful…that is a Blog, and not the diaries that Nussbaum speaks of. She addresses this digital revolution when she says, “There were no cellphones, no answering machines; there was no “texting,” no MP3’s, no JPEGs, no digital cameras or fie-sharing software’ ther eas no World WIde WEb–none of that private-ish, public-ish, superimmediate forums kids today take for granted,” (Page 351 of Kline and Burstein’s Blog!). That again shows how she misunderstands the generation. I’d like to include myself in this large group she seems to be stereotyping, and I’d like to include that I certianly don’t take it for granted.

In fact I find it fascinating how far we’ve come and feel very priviledged to have grown up in this era. We are very aware of our abilities to understand technology and how electronically involved our worlds are. As I mentioned before, there is a period of only a few years in which teenagers are heavily involved with online diaries. As children get older and they outgrow the tedious, and often troublesome online diaries and migrate towards more respectable blogs and social networking sites. At one point Nussbaum mentions that this habit of recording our lives online is as if “…a generation were given a massive technological truth serum,” (351). Once again, she is generalizing a group that simply shouldn’t be so typecast in that way.

Again I’d like to mention that I enjoy her style of writing and respect her efforts, but I think she is a bit midguided and misunderstands the youth of today. She even attempts to grasp the world of cliques within young teenagers: “The emo kids tend to be the artsy  loners and punks…” (357). Not every area or every high schoole experiences such cliques, and many work to break away from cliques and categorization like myself. I’ve never ‘belonged’ to any one group and have never felt the need to, like the kids she discusses in her essay. Perhaps the children she researched and interviewed did indeed have that desperate need to belong and be included, but many people simply do not fit that criteria.

Furthermore, I’d just like to emphasize that she is confusing the blogosphere with young high-schoolers who write about their lives and fight with each other on internet diaries. At one point I believe she says that “blogging is a replication of real life,” (358). Blogging often discusses current events and research, and information…not records of personal events within their lives. I’m not trying to generalize the blogging community of course, but if you were to go to jezebel.com, or look at the political party blogs, or feminist blogs, you’ll have more of a grasp on what blogging is and how it differentiates from the online journals of today’s youth.

I may not have fully addressed the issue at hand, which is whether or not parents should monitor their teens’ journals. The answer is no, they should not. In our world today it is a healthy phase that we all go through, and it is part of growing up and adapting to the world. If a child is writing about how much they hate their parents, and sex, and cutting…than that is the parents’ fault in more ways than one. If their posts are serious enough, I’ve found other kids and readers take it upon themselves to warn their parents. For that reason I don’t think anyone should invade anyone elses privacy–if you know your child does not want you reading their online journal they share with their peers, than don’t read it. It’s not worth jeapordizing your relationship with your child, or their trust.