When I first started my blog, I told a few friends, and no family members. My anonymity was not so much to protect myself from other people finding out my opinions, but more to protect my family from exposure to opinions that we are on a don't ask don't tell position about. Since then, I've found that there is safety in a pseudonym is convenient in protecting the identity of people I want to write about.
Over the last year an a half, I've found that I've made anonymous friends on this blog. Since the initial point of this blog was to help me survive a hard 2 body problem, this is a very good thing. The downside of having more people I know reading this blog, of course, is that there are sometimes posts that I cannot write. That's a price I'm willing to pay.
In fact, I am willing to pay more of that price. Specifically, I'm noticing that many of the people I used to love to read and hear from on my blog roll have disappeared. This is not surprising: I read a lot of small blogs, which tend to have short lifespans. Unlike RL friends, a blog dying usually means I fall out of touch with the writer. So, my question is: Those of you who have run teeny tiny blogs like mine for years, how have you managed to maintain a community?
I don't know if I've managed to maintain a community. I've certainly lost contact with people I considered blog-friends when their blogs closed, or when they chose to spend more time tweeting or facebooking. One or two have transitioned into e-mail friends, a bit.
ReplyDeleteBut I guess the sense of community I get through my blog and through this corner of the blogosphere is maybe more like a lab community than say a family-community - the actual people involved change, as new arrivals join and others graduate or move to other jobs, but the structure as a whole remains pretty consistent. So even though the people in question are different than they were three years ago, I still get this feeling that I do HAVE a group of people who will listen, and understand, and sometimes have something useful or supportive or funny to say about the things that come along during my day. And that that is what matters.
I see your point, and I think it is a correct way of looking at the situation. I think my problem may be that this type of fluid community has always been something I've struggled with. In real life (undergrad, grad school, first post doc) people came, I became friends with them, and then they (or I) graduated, and missed them. Such is "life" I suppose. Thanks for the perspective.
ReplyDeleteI am new to your blog, but I really like it! Nice to meet you. I have just been blogging for one year and so i haven't seen many blogs fall to the wayside.
ReplyDelete