So what determines a blog as important or unimportant? Is a blog with the most followers more important than one with none? Does importance rely on the who's who of the list of names in the comment section? Or does a blog's importance depend on the weight each individual places on that blog?
I realized I needed to first get my mind around the word "important" and just what was important, really important. And where in the scheme of importance does blogging fit.
After at least several minutes of mental gymnastics, I decided that there were two kinds of importance. Things we absolutely needed to survive were one kind of importance. And the rest was all of the crap we place varying unimportant degrees of importance on.
Using this criteria, it is easy to identify the "unimportant blogger". The unimportant blogger is all of us out here in the blogosphere. Not a single one of us is crucial to the existence of our physical world or this made up out of nothing Internet world. So get over yourselves, any of you who think that having more followers, more hits, more comments somehow makes you more important than the rest of us blogging slugs.
If there is one thing I would consider important when considering the Internet and blogging, it is the word connection. That is the one important thing all bloggers bring to the table. They help the ongoing and growing connection humanity is in the early phases of because of the World Wide Web.
I can piss and moan about the 90% of Internet traffic being so much wasted bandwidth with no tangible redeeming value, but the fact is the internet, for good or bad, is going to change the way our species interacts with each other. The planet just got smaller and now our neighbors are no longer the folks next door, but the folks in the next country, across the oceans, and people they did not know in the next county.
So to all the bloggers out there, and yes even you Tweeter twits, you are all important. You are members of a larger movement that will fundamentally rearrange human culture in the future. But as to any one of us being more important than another, well it just ain't so.
Later...........................................................
6 comments:
What will VIPs do in an egalitarian society? Something useful I would hope. I have always thought that either everyone is important or no one is. But, what do I know?
I know that if I stopped blogging today, the world would still turn...there might be some unhappy people for a week or so..but I'd soon be forgotten...
I am an Impo'tant Blogger
I blog because I have this need to write. That someone bothers to read what I write is a bonus. But like Jackiesue said - when I am gone no one will miss me.
the ol'Buzzard
Interesting perspective. I never even considered whether a blogger was important or not. I was always compelled by the search for community. I still have bookmarks to bloggers who have been dead a long time. I don't want to forget them.
Community is indeed the key about blogging! That is where it helps me. It is its joy.
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