Posts
Sure, stat counter tells us where our readers are, but do you ever wonder who is reading your silly little blog? Comments are informative for our regulars, but who else is looking at this?
I've had old friends, religious associates, extended family, parents of old friends, employers, students, and strangers let me know that they look at my blog. This makes me feel good and worried at the same time.
If a blog is like a journal, then how do you decide what to publish and what to not publish? I think mean is funny. I also think inappropriate is funny. How can I be funny and not set myself up for real-life drama?
How public is a public blog? How do you find other people's blogs? Do you stumble upon them by following other people's links? Do you google them? Are they linked to particular webpages?
I've recently gotten a second teaching gig, (barely part-time, you bossy mommies) and again I'm thinking about taking my blog down. Yes, most posts are about my baby, but do I really want my students to know that I'm completely preoccupied with celebrities and that I have cut the word "jerk" into my loved one's clothes?
Perhaps not.
Case in point:
Famous Celia Fae writes comment about Thanksgiving being torture on her friend's blog. Mom, who hosted Thanksgiving, calls Celia and gets on her case about how hard she worked to prepare for Thanksgiving and how Celia's comments made her feel bad. Celia a) wrote that before Thanksgiving b) was probably exaggerating as she is prone to do c) perhaps meant that Thanksgiving was/would be torture for reasons other than those mom thought (i.e. packing everyone and driving or whatever).
Here are my questions:
Have you had any bad blogging run-ins? What are the consequences in the real world of keeping a blog and writing comments? Do you stress about this half as much as I do? Does it limit what you write? 
Unrelated Alice, Mimi and Gramma Pamma picture.
17 comments:
Of course I LOVE all blogging run-ins, bad or good. If you feel worried again you should take it down. Or you could guest post on my blog or something. Anyone who reads my blog is automatically my best friend, whether they hate the blog or not, they are my best friend. I love my blog, therefore I love my blog readers.
I really wish you wouldn't take it down. I think you are fairly innocuous and cutting jerk into his shorts is hilarious.
I get mad about stuff all of the time and wish I could blog about it but I can't. It is going to have to be okay.
My life still sucks from the torture comment.
When are we going to get our cute babies together again? Alice wants to play with Mimi.
Maybe you need to hire a censor. My husband has been doing such a great job that my last 4 posts weren't allowed up. Do you want to engage his services?
If you do quit you still have to at least send snapfish photos. Also, I secretly want you to quit so I can too.
Blogging is a lot of pressure. I recently took a post down because I feared the person it was about would get offended. I fret way too much.
Of course, there is the time I posted a comment on a family member's blog that Scott censored and I had to call all the Greenbaum sisters for immediate help in it's removal (something I didn't know how to do at the time). That was really stressful! As I recall, everyone was too busy blogging to answer the phone.
I got in trouble too when my step-mom and Dad saw the anonymous comment on my blog about John's gash in his head. I still don't know who wrote that comment. They said they shouldn't have to read about stuff like that on the computer. I should TELL them. And now they'll probably find this comment somehow and I'll get in trouble again.
Don't take your blog down.
I have yet to have a bloging run-in, but that is probably because I highly censor what I write. Secretly I want to write about lots more things, but I worry too much about what others will think. Especially my family and in-laws who always check just to find out about the kids.
I once actually started a second blog so I could write (complain) about anything I wanted, but then decided it was too hard to do both, so I deleted it.
I agree. It can be tough. My blog was started as most have been, to be a journal. It was more "journaly" when just my family read it. Now, I feel like I have to keep up with just enough funny, sarcasm, cuteness etc etc to fancy the readers. And then I worry that my parents are going to read it and think that their daughter is a loony. They do frequently ask me who all my commenters are. I tell them the truth and my dad says, "you know I just have to tell you because I am your dad, that....Blah blah blah" and he proceeds to inform me that you all may be 65 year old sexual predators! Hope he doesn't read this. Oh what a vicious cycle.
But don't take your blog down. OR make it private but invite us all.
You have been burned once already, so you are perhaps a little more sensitive to this than your typical blogging mom. I like your blog and if you continue in the genre you've established, there's nothing offensive of inflammatory. Though offensive or inflammatory would be even more entertaining! I hope you don't stop blogging.
Just a little note- The Greenbaum Sisters don't quit!! That means all of you, don't stop Posting! Sometimes you say the things that I think and don't have the courage to blog. I feel very censored, My husband is the Bishop and I can't let everyone knows he has a naughty wife! It's slowly killing me!
hasn't happened yet to me - although an old friend googled my name recently and my blog came up and she was able to get in touch with me.
so that's good, right?
So interesting. I haven't had a blog run-in...cause I write all those sappy spiritual posts, you know. But I totally hate that I have to edit for my audience...I wish I had a friend blog and a relative blog, because there would be SO MUCH good parent/step-parent/in-law material that you can't put up. And then I worry that my commenter friends will think stuff about my kids are boring. I keep trying to remind myself that my blog is for me.
hey just thought i should let you know today when we were bored in journalism we googled each other's names. guess what pops up when you type in camille greenan. that's right, your blog. specifically the entry when i fed mimi something that made her look like hitch. people at athenian are going to read it whether you like it or not. it comes from having inquisitive minds. or being super-nosy cause our lives are so boring, whichever you prefer.
Our blog is read by LOTS of people that don't fall into the normal blogging universe - former and current colleagues, spiritual leaders, politicos, non-LDSers, people we might one day want to be LDS, friends, stalkers and of course family. I feel pressure to make the blog interesting, informative (but not overly so) and NEVER embarrassing. Hence, I cannot blog everyday - my readership would be horrified, I cannot blog about a host of things that normal people neither want to know or care about, and I cannot always be as clever as I would like to be because my cleverness quickly degenerates into sarcastic snarkiness and that is not always okay.
Let me know what you conclude from your blog soul-searching cause I'd love some guidance here too.
I have had NO blog run-ins, which makes me slightly sad, because I WAS slightly famous when I had a sick baby. Right? RIGHT????
I have no qualms writing snotty things on my blog, but then again, I don't really have too many people that might care reading it. I DID feel like I should censor for a bit when I found out that my husbands ENTIRE family (extended, everything) was reading, but I got over that real quick, because if they have a problem with the real, sometimes irreverent me, then they can bite me.
I've often wondered about this. There is definitely a "blogiquette" to be aware of...have hit the delete button often enough to say that, yes, that awareness has definitely affected my posts. What to do? Password-protected private blogs? Or must we go back to talking face to face?
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