| Blogging
Communities Turn Faceless Strangers into Close Friends
by: Jesse S. Somer
I’ve been searching the Internet for blogging sites for a fair
while now and recently I came across a whole blogging community, which
has grabbed my interest greatly. It’s called Joe User and it’s
a site that many bloggers all around the globe are partaking in. It
is very well organized into categories such as Best Articles, Newest
blog entries, Top blogging sites, New sites and Most hit-on bloggers.
The blogs range from very personal life introspection to serious analysis
of current affairs in the media.
The aspect that has appealed to me the most is the very personal type
of blogging community. Many people are talking about their feelings
and issues about life with people that technically they have never met
face to face. However, the type of camaraderie I’ve ‘witnessed’
as a bystander has truly amazed me. These people talk to each other
as though they are extremely close friends, and the strange thing is
I think this is the reality.
When one person has something important happen to them in their life,
up to 100 or more comments will arrive under their blog entry with advice
and information as well as emotional support from their blogging friends.
Of course there are some differences in opinion, but the general perspective
seems to be one of a positive approach to humanity. People are really
spilling out their souls to each other, and then accepting criticism
as well as discussing possible solutions to problems. I just find this
to be truly inspirational, a human community or ‘tribe’ that
has formed simply because of the Internet’s existence.
These people must spend a lot of time communicating with each other.
Some are writing new entries everyday, as well as articles and conversations.
The conversations usually happen in the ‘comments’ section
where one can see that these people often stay up into the late hours
of the morning, blogging to each other back and forth. The amount of
love shared by these arbitrary acquaintances is astounding. One could
perceive the whole experience as a form of therapy but I think it is
much more than that. I believe this is a sign of a revolution. The coming
of the New Human Tribe has begun.
If random bloggers can evolve into a community of people who trust,
respect, and are intimate and united with each other this says a lot
for the human condition. People are tired of the segregated, separatist
reality of countries, cultures, races and religions. These group blogging
sites, or collective on-line journals as I now like to think of them,
are symbolic of the future connectedness of all of humanity. It may
take a hundred years, or a thousand, or maybe only fifty, but it definitely
looks like there’s hope yet for the warring, greedy humans. One
day we all may be ‘one’ again in our minds as well as our
physical forms.
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