Tag Archives: Blogging: Digital Media and Societies Series

Me, My Blog and I

I try not to get into blogs. Or TV shows. Or Videogames. Or anything else that can be potentially addicting and will remove me further from my everyday reality than I already am. Now, with that said, I will list off the blogs I do follow. It’s a long, exhaustive list (wink). I swear by jezebel.com and the way it represents the world through a feminist lens to counter all the crap women are given in mass media. Nitrolicious.com is a fashion blog that combines urban street wear with Chanel. What more could a girl want? Lately, I’ve been falling off the nitro bandwagon because it’s beginning to focus more on the chic than on the dope, as well as the blogger’s own fabulous life. Essentially, it’s starting to address me less and less but I still scope it out from time to time. The last blog… drum roll please… is 2dopeboyz.com, which keeps me up to date with the latest hip-hop and RnB. This is very crucial when a New Yorker goes to school in Vermont.

So, as you can probably guess, my experience with blogging is not extensive. Now take a wild guess as to what my face looked like when I was told I had to keep a blog for class. I’ll just tell you—I was horrified. When I reluctantly began this blog, a lot of the posts were just summaries/lame reflection of the readings. Obviously I’ve opened up a bit.

Viewing blogs as a secondary orality can even convert a non-believer like me. Orality is the use of speaking, talking, reciting as communication rather than writing and printed texts—the way they did it in the old days. Blogs, although written, take on many of the features of orality because it is a conversation, it is social and it is less formal than print writing (Rettberg: 33). Let’s hang on the last feature for a bit. I think that my issue with blogs was bridging the informal nature of blogs into a liberal arts college classroom.  But who am I to say there’s no space for blogs in Middlebury? After all, jezebel.com touches on tons of issues that can tie over to my classes and has often been my source for a good conversation or two even in an academic setting. Let’s just say, I’m warming up to the idea of my own blog more and more.