Thursday, September 28, 2006

About blogging...

[ Disclaimer: I have finished my required three hours of studying today + my college work too {not that I'm boasting}]

I have been pondering from quite some time about blogging anonymously. I never had the option, or if I did, I didn't consider it at that time.I started blogging as an experiment on MSN Spaces, but that turned into a personal diary, so I blocked it for people, made it private. But those few people who live far away from me, and who read my space there as a link to me felt cheated. Hence I started a blog on blogger. Which will explain why my earliest posts have a number of dates clubbed together under one day. I just lifted parts I could share from my space and posted here.

Then I got into proper blogging. On blogspot. Around the same time I starrted blogging on Mumbai Metblogs, metblogs opened me to whole new world of bloggers. Suddenly I realized that "Oh My God, So many people blog, in so many styles and about so many topics"
I had truly been initiated into the blogosphere then. I started reading a lot of blogs. I picked favourties, stored them on my fav list, then did the smart blogger thing to do and stored them on the links list on my blog and I then started to spruce up my blog.
Around this time I realized two important things:

1. There are well defined, well shaped groups inthe blog world. People link to each other, read each other, leave countless comments and follow-up comments to each other and generally look out for one another.

2. The best bloggers seem to be journalists. Just seem to be. And its not neessarry to love their blogs or like them even.

And unfortunately for me, both these important things scae me to hell and back. One, coz I have never been able to fit into any group as such. I'm not sure if no groups is good groups (no news is good news types..) but I seem to be pretty content in my little circle of commentators and bloggers. Not that it is a group. Its mostly my froends in the real world who are also now sitting up and taking notice of my little virtual world. Which is good, coz those of my friends who dont read my blog are missing out on a part of my world, which is absolutel essential to me now.

And two, coz I am ohalfway on the path to be a journalist. So its not like I dont want to be as intelligent as them, but I just dont want to be a bloody Journalist. Especially after this master's degree which I am gonna acquire half way I have realized that advertising IS my true calling. Like how sometimes, doing the wrong thing shows you what exactly is the right thing for you.

Now after reaching this point in my blogging, I have been debating if I should start an anon blog of my own. If you ask for the reasons, I dont have them. Maybe I want to be viewed as an identity apart from the one I have always been know for. Perhaps I want t be abl to open a little bit of that private blog to the public, but I'm too scared to do it just to be judged on what people know of me till now.

I have been initiating a few college friends into the world of blogging, and when i ask them if they wnt to blog with a pseudonym or with their own names, I feel a twinge. I just dint have this question thrown to me when I started blogging.

I read Ideasmith's Blog regularly now, which started of quite accidently. She blogs anonymously, but has her own identity. She has been contemplating revealing herself from quite sometime now. There are many who say do it, and some who say dont. I dont know what I feel, but I sure do wish I had the choice.

You know how we all have been thru that phase, when we took up silly names for our email ids. In the heat of the teenage moment. Similarly, I took this name in the heat of the moment. There are times when i wonder why I'm so stuck with this term "Dreams". It's childish, come to think of it, its like a label stuck on me, which I seem to have stuck with quikfix myself.

A lot of people have asked me why my MSN nickname, my blogspot ID, and a lot of other things are attached to dream. From quite sometime. Rather from when my life became a tumultous rocking yo-yo. At that time it seemed like dreams were the only anchor my life had. My dreams broke too, but they remained my anchor. I still can't shrug it off, and I guess when I do, I'd have left that one stoic, solid point in my life too.

Anyway, so my dreams have defined my identity. I know that for those who dont know me, and still read my blog, I am still an anonymous person. But I am very careful to not display my pictures anywhere. I am very careful to not give away details of my life, which would enable anyone to trace a trail to me.

But still that is not anonymity. I wonder howmany people would read my blog if i started one anonymously.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

do it and see. if u encroach on other blogs, leave ur marks, thn it wont take much time for ppl to notice u. if not, u might have to be patient. 'coz whether its good or not, everything new is always approached with skepticism. and then again, anything at all can happen with u!
blogging too is like a product. if its good enough, then even without advertisement, it will promote itself sooner or later. its just tht exposing ur work, not urself, ur work, ur blog, would splash u sooner. too long a comment eh?

Anonymous said...

You'll never know unless you try it, will you? I started off blogging in a similar way and it was just incidental that I used an anonymous moniker rather than my own name. All this while later, sometimes I feel that the persona of IdeaSmith has become bigger than my real-life one...like more people like IdeaSmith and much more intensely than they would like me in real-life. Its a strange dilemma and the exact opposite of what you face...who would read if I wrote as myself?

To come back, try anonymous blogging...it a heady, virtually never-experienced-before feeling to be able to express your thoughts without any limitations whatsoever. Anonymity allows that. Readership will come on its own.

Anonymous said...

Aah lot of things said in there apart frm blogging as well.
Blogging, hmmm begins frm how u want ur ideas to be reached out n responded by people.
Reality n anonymity, both hav advantages n disadvantages.
In anonymity blogging, people wud comment on ur ideas, on wht u hav written, on wht u hav presented based on ur understanding.
Reality blogging, frnds reading ur blog may knw u. They may look more into the idea and situation then wht is being said, considering they knw u. This may be reflected in their comments. Can be +ve n -ve.
People have hopes, wishes - dreams. Go, ahead ur chase ur dreamz.
Bahot jyaada fundas ho gaye.;-).

creative genius said...

so the disclaimer was for me ...
i guess i seen your life a a blogger, thought not been a very active part of it... Well i would have to disagree tha the best blogs are from journalists as i have read good blogs in finance world, computers and personal blog.
There is no reason to be scared if you do not fit into any group as i gues these group too got built up as gradually and maybe ay after a certain time u might unknowingly form one.

Blogging anonymously or not is like two sides of the coin. Its like you have one and you long for the other.

About the blogpot ID starting with dream , ya it might be a bit childish , but its one thing that will remind you of days when u started blogging..

Anonymous said...

i have always wondered what made people blog anonymously. i never understood the concept - unless you were hiding from something or someone.

if you had to write really personal stuff and hide it from the world - you might as well write in MS-Word and save it on your computer with a password?

your post has got me thinking! :)

~The Dream Catcher~ said...

'nonnymous-not too long no. But your thoughts about doing and seeing..makes for serious food for thought..

Ideasmith-same goes.. but about liking your personality less thn the image put up by your blog, I am sure ur blog reflects your personality somewhere or the other, in some hidden crevice.. I think it'll be an exhilirating feeling..having a blog image bigger than your own real image.

j-fat lot u know.. ;)

Creative Genius - *grinz* u r gonna find tht disclaimer for next one month.. u think i should change the dreamz part of it??

Atul Sabnis- and your comment got me thinking... you know, everyone who has something personal to write and hide, also have the need to have it approved from someone.. rather everyone. Its like, you need to know that others think tht its not tht big a deal.. and things like tht.. Ill know more once i start it too..

Anonymous said...

Hmmm yeah its natural people seek approval of their thought frm others.
Waise as I knw u always do what u want to do.
The more u remain internally driven, then externally the more u will feel good.

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