Tag Archives: writing

Mommyblogging: Empowered Exhibitionism

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Alright, I realize it’s a tad meta to be blogging about blogging (again), but hey, it’s a social media course!

This week’s module included Anders Albrechtslund’s 2008 article entitled “Online social networking as participatory surveillance.”  It’s an interesting article, if a little behind the ridiculously fast pace of the tech world (pretty sure MySpace stopped being popular before 2008, but that might just be Silicon Valley).  One paragraph towards the end particularly jumped out at me, and it also ties in with something I mentioned in my previous post.  Albrechtslund writes, referencing Hille Koskela (2004):

She introduces the concept empowering exhibitionism to describe the practice of revealing your (very) personal life. By exhibiting their lives, people claim “copyright” to their own lives, as they engage in the self–construction of identity. This reverts the vertical power relation, as visibility becomes a tool of power that can be used to rebel against the shame associated with not being private about certain things. Thus, exhibitionism is liberating, because it represents a refusal to be humble.

Koskela discussed this in the context of webcams and similar sorts of surveillance, but it applies to blogs, and one category of blog in particular.

A remarkable trend in blogging is known as the mommyblog.  There is a network of women, some stay-at-home mothers, others who work, who write and communicate with each other virtually during what can be a glorious but incredibly isolating and emotionally turbulent time: early motherhood. One of the few blogs I follow religiously is http://dooce.com/, authored by Heather Armstrong.

Armstrong has the dubious distinction of having her blog/internet identity be an entry in urban dictionary.  “dooce” has several meanings, all inspired by her blog, but the original meaning is to be fired because of one’s blog.  In the early 2000s, she made the mistake of writing about her workplace, and of course, her supervisors eventually found out.

But she’s also a perfect example of this “empowering exhibitionism.”  She writes honestly and bluntly about her struggles with depression, with the wildly different personalities of her children, and her careful but loving relationship with a family who disagree with her choices in politics and religion.  Her blog was popular long before 2004, when it suddenly rocketed into mainstream awareness due to her decision to challenge the public shame and social stigma associated with postpartum depression.  And let me say, her writings are heartbreaking and hilarious by turns. Sidebar: one of my very favorite posts is a play-by-play breakdown of the birth of her first child.  Trust me.  It had me laughing so hard that I couldn’t see straight to keep reading.

Heather Armstrong is someone I admire for her willingness to be publicly vulnerable and talk so openly about a subject that is a subject of great personal shame for many women.  Her struggle was serious – because she wanted to breastfeed, she had to change or completely go off her standard medications for depression and anxiety, and after several months of spiraling into an incredibly dark place, she voluntarily checked herself into the psych ward of her local hospital for observation and help.  Not sleeping, unable to regulate her emotions… the story is incredible, and it’s a serious issue.

In the case of Heather Armstrong, empowered exhibitionism isn’t about humility, and I think it’s a little unfair of Koskela and Albrechtslund to pigeonhole the phenomenon.  Armstrong used the pulpit of the internet to reach out to her fanbase (admittedly, mostly women, many of whom have children) and address a common and socially stigmatized issue.  Many women who suffer from postpartum depression, or even those who don’t but get frustrated and upset from spending months on 24/7 infant watch duty are afraid to discuss the emotions because they’re afraid that it makes them bad mothers.  Everyone else can manage, they think – so why can’t I?  Mommybloggers like Heather Armstrong have created an internet safe space and communications network that make it easier to discuss such issues, because the participants know they’re talking to people who understand.  Whether a reader comments or not, it can help to know someone else out there has gone through something similar.  And it helps the blogger, too.  Writing about the experience seemed to help Armstrong reclaim some of the sense of control over her life that she had felt like she’d lost.

A few years ago, Armstrong took her blog one step further.  Dooce.com now has a community section, a forum for discussions and questions.  I’m a member, and I love the feeling of being in a safe space.  It seems to be mostly women, though there are some men, and discussions range from investing advice and home improvement to struggling with divorce, student loans, and health issues.  I’ve reached out a couple times and there’s always a flood of support and helpful advice or commiseration.

Empowered exhibitionism is risky, and those who really make it work, like Heather Armstrong, are few and far between.  But when it works… boy, does it work.

 

Why I Blog

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I just finished reading Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog” article from The Atlantic, and I thought that might be a good place for me to start.

I have had a blog presence since I was sixteen.  Back in 2003, when I joined Livejournal, new users still needed an access code from a current member.  I joined because it seemed fun, because my new college-age friends from a Stanford theater production were on it and I admired them, and because I was curious.  I’d never really heard of blogging, and hadn’t spent much time exploring the possibilities of the Internet Age.  In retrospect, this seems strange to me.

I’m from Silicon Valley.  My father is an engineer who loves to join startups.  In 1994, he and my uncle started one of the earliest Internet retail sites (http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1966.html).  The first two employees (my dad and my uncle) had desks squeezed into our tiny basement.  The third sat at a folding table in the garage.  So the internet boom was my childhood.  This is why it surprises me to look back and realize how little technological exploration I did.  On the other hand, I got my first email address in fourth grade, which I’m starting to understand is unusual for people my age!

Sullivan’s article is fascinating, and I suspect it will benefit from multiple readings.  In the four pages, he discusses his own introduction to blogging and compares it to other forms of writing and publication, from personal diaries to famous essayists like Montaigne.  He describes the tone as “conversational” and says it’s more like a broadcast than a publication.  I’d never thought of comparing blogging to radio, but I can see his point.  The immediacy of the medium and the pressure to post regularly for fear of losing the audience does bring blogging closer to the “live” media of radio and television.

I always considered blogs as falling into two categories: the online journalist column and the public diary.  Two blogs I follow fit these.  The Marquee Blog, found via CNN.com, posts regular updates for my guilty pleasure – the world of screen entertainment.  On the other hand, I have followed dooce.com for years and have laughed and cried with blogger Heather Armstrong as she’s struggled with children, life, and emotional health problems.

Taking LIBR500 at the start of my SLAIS career brought a new way of thinking about blogging, as well as re-starting me on blogging.  From what I recall of the discussions, a blog is the ideal incarnation of Web 2.0.  It is designed to be immediate and interactive, from the inclusion of hyperlinks to the ability of readers to comment and get direct replies from the author.  Blogs are designed to start conversations.

Unfortunately, there are now so many blogs out there that the conversational part of blogging doesn’t really happen the way we might hope.  I held onto the WordPress blog I started for LIBR500, though I now write about whatever I want there. It’s a continual disappointment that most of my posts get no comments.  I used to journal, pouring my teenage soul into scrawled handwritten pages.  For the most part, I now prefer blogging.  I want the conversation. I want to know that people are reading.  Yes, WordPress has a statistics function to show how many people looked at which pages, but it’s not the same as a comment.

Last summer, I started working on a long-term project to organize and properly house my grandmother’s papers.  She seems to have written letters almost daily, and she saved carbon copies of what she sent – so we have the whole conversation.  It’s a remarkable personal archive, but unfortunately her filing style is along the lines of “hey look, there’s still room in that folder.”  (If you’re interested, I’ve written a bit more about this project here and here.)  I’ve found some of her journals in the boxes of papers, and in reading them, I was struck by the tone.  Sullivan describes blogs as “conversational” and designed for public consumption, while a diary is “almost always a private matter. Its raw honesty, its dedication to marking life as it happens and remembering life as it was, makes it a terrestrial log.”

My grandmother’s journals are raw and painfully emotional at times, while also chronicling the everyday matters of life.  But these diaries are infused with what I can only describe as a consciousness of future readers.  I think maybe she had a romanticized dream of herself as a great undiscovered diarist, whose works would be discovered posthumously and published to wild acclaim.  It’s something she’d have liked, I’m sure.  So yes, diaries are designed for private venting.  But I’m not sure Sullivan’s right to say that only a “few” diaries are intended for publication.  I think blogging was an inevitable development.  The cynical side of my brain says that’s because humans are inherently self-absorbed and like nothing better than to talk about themselves and their own opinions.  A less cynical take might be to say that humans are social animals.  We need private places to express our most personal thoughts, yes, but blogs allow us to discuss and learn with a wider population.  I have to wonder how many people throughout history wrote diaries with one eye to an imagined future audience.

The question is, does the idea or knowledge of a wider audience lead you to self-censor or to greater honesty?