Blogging for Blogging's Sake

I don't think I have really bought in to the whole blogging thing. Some people can blog everyday--half the people who live in my house do--but I can't. Is it self-censorship? Maybe. If it is, it's a knowing kind that isn't necessarily bad.

Here's an important point lost on most of the blogger/myspace generation:

Not everyone cares what you have to say. In fact, you can be sure that most people don't.

Not that most individuals don't already know that, but in some part of their psyche they might not believe it.

Not that the whole internet connectivity thing is socially bad--it's not. The ability to reconnect with old friends and meet new friends without regard to geographic boundaries is an important and valuable thing. However, considering that our society is already so self-obsessed, the last thing it seems like each of us needs is a little internet shrine to ourselves. We engage in constant celebrity worship: Authors, movie stars, athletes, politicians, muppets, etc. The act of voyeurism is essentially enjoying vicarious experience. People worship art-rock trash indie rock bands in part because we want to be the singer, or the guitarist, or something (but usually not the guy who plays bass/keyboards--he wants to be the guitarist, too). We crave a human connection with those individuals not because we want to know them (because we think we do know them from their "art" or whatever else), but because we want them to know us.

There's nothing wrong with self-expression per se--and human connection requires self-expression, in part. But I feel that the blog thing allows an individual to engage in unmitigated self-promotion, like it's your own private billboard, and as if the line between self-expression and advertising is completely blurred. While there may be something cathartic about it, I think that one of the main problems with human beings is their self-centeredness, and this trend really only seems to magnify it.

But maybe I'm missing the point?