Triggered by a recent tech gathering that has caused a little bit of ruckus due to it’s perceived “invitation only” nature, Danny O’Brien ended up touching on a subject that I found fascinating: the difference between our “real world” conversations and the conversations we have through our websites, and some of the key differences between them.
In the real world, we have conversations in public, in private, and in secret. All three are quite separate. The public is what we say to a crowd; the private is what we chatter amongst ourselves, when free from the demands of the crowd; and the secret is what we keep from everyone but our confidant. Secrecy implies intrigue, implies you have something to hide. Being private doesn’t. You can have a private gathering, but it isn’t necessarily a secret. All these conversations have different implications, different tones.
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On the net, you have public, or you have secrets. The private intermediate sphere, with its careful buffering. is shattered. E-mails are forwarded verbatim. IRC transcripts, with throwaway comments, are preserved forever. You talk to your friends online, you talk to the world.
This is why, incidentally, why people hate blogs so much. My God, people say, how can Livejournallers be so self-obsessed? Oh, Christ, is Xeni talking about LA art again? Why won’t they all shut up?
The answer why they won’t shut up is – they’re not talking to you. They’re talking in the private register of blogs, that confidential style between secret-and-public. And you found them via Google. They’re having a bad day. They’re writing for friends who are interested in their hobbies and their life. Meanwhile, you’re standing fifty yards away with a sneer, a telephoto lens and a directional microphone. Who’s obsessed now?
The first part of the article is about the tech conference, so you’ll need to scroll down about halfway to get to what I found to be the interesting section of the article.
While I hadn’t analyzed it at all, I think on some level I’ve always approached this weblog knowing that it resides in that hazy area between public and private. While it’s certainly public by virtue of being available on the ‘net for anyone who stops by or finds their way here through Google, it’s also in many ways private — it’s primarily about me, my life, and what I’m going through or thinking about in the world around me, and as such, of interest primarily only to friends or people who know me.
But because of the online mix of public and private, I’ve generally tried to find a comfortable middle ground in what I post and what subject matter I choose. While the tone of what I write here is generally of the “private”, conversational tone, there are certainly conversations I’ve had in the real world that I would be hesitant to post here — not because they’re “secret”, but because put in a “public” forum and taken out of context, they can be seen in a far different light than they’re intended. As an example, describing a friend as “the only person I know who’s so flexible he can put his foot in his mouth with his head up his ass” might be (and was) amusing to my group of friends and even to the person in question, but were that posted here, out of context and on its own, the intended humor might not be seen.
I think I’m rambling a bit now — it may be a bit soon after waking up to really dive into this. Still, Danny’s post fascinated me, and it’s worth turning over in your head for a bit.
