AmbaSewa wrote:

“I currently post comments on a fairly regular basis on four blogs.
Two are the blogs of total strangers. Mind you, the totality of their strangeness is reducing- one particularly blogs prolifically.”

There’s a weirdness that comes from reading other people’s deep expressions on a blog.

You become engaged and drawn in and you *feel* a connection. But there really isn’t a connection, because it’s only one sided. The feeling is there, but there’s nothing genuine backing it. You read something that has you emotionally fired up. But you don’t know the person and they don’t know you.

There are, I think, two sides to it. I once heard there are two sides to everything

The Sharing Side

Traditionally, people build up conversation about deeply personal stuff relatively slowly and only with people they trust. People become acquaintances, and then social friends, and then good friends, and maybe best friends.

And then they talk about these things.

But now, we can record our innermost stuff on the internet! Nothing feels risky anymore, because there’s no immediate feedback to tell us we’ve done something unwise and possibly damaging. Hmm… I think I’ll say that again because it feels important.

Nothing feels risky anymore.

In the flesh and blood world, when you say something deeply personal in the wrong company, you know it. Immediately. Things get to that really awkward place really fast. I know. I’ve been there, on both sides. I don’t have to tell you this. You know. You’ve been there. On both sides.

When you post something online, you don’t get that feedback. People could be reading this very post and shuddering, and saying, “I’ll never speak to him again. Too much information! That was unspeakably awkward.” Probably not – but the point is, I don’t get to see them react that way. People could be feeling all warm and fuzzy. I don’t know.

The vast majority of people who read, don’t comment. The result is that when you post something like that… It doesn’t feel either catastrophic or heroic. The feeling of it is totally removed from the reality.

And so we’re led to make decisions we wouldn’t otherwise. Like sharing something that is best friend, pinky-swear material because we never know that it makes things awkward.

The Hearing Side

The hearing side weirdness is what happens when we browse our Facebook feed. We’re sitting there flipping through and we know everything that’s going on in all our friends’ lives. We feel connected. But we weren’t really part of any of those stories.

There’s that disconnect with reality again. We feel differently than we should. Welcome to Internet weirdness.

It happens when we see someone dumping their soul on a blog. It’s compelling.

We don’t really know how to respond, because the messages we’re receiving are contradicting one another. On the one hand, we’re reading pinky-swear stuff – it’s a real best friend level interaction. On the other hand, it’s coming from a complete stranger.

What exactly is the right and proper relationship? It doesn’t fit any pre-built boxes.

This is similar to Seth Godin’s “fake networking” - the illusion, and more importantly, the feeling of being connected, but without any genuine interchange of something worthwhile. Friendship is built on sacrifice and if you’ve only read someone’s blog, there hasn’t been any yet.

That’s why conversation is important. That’s why the exchange (and not just consumption) of worthwhile thoughts and feelings is important. That’s why commenting is valuable. It grounds people. It gives people something that, while not as effective as a face to face conversation, is suddenly far more real than just reading.

People can build real friendships this way. We’ve done it through letters in the past. There are still limitations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make this medium work for us.

We will adapt, and we will eventually arrive at a social approach that works – that isn’t awkward or inappropriate, that is sustainable and not viewed as all-sufficient.

I bet it will have better feedback mechanisms though.