GTA Bloggers(National Post, 3 Mar 2003)
by Liz Clayton
Whether you know what one is or not, the odds are good that someone you know has a blog. The unappealing word is short for “weblog”, a fast-growing species of Web-based chronicles that range in style from diary to political soapbox. More than simply web pages, blogs are structured like online journals, meant to keep you coming back for the author’s latest ruminations.
If one of your Toronto-area friends or neighbours has a blog, you will most likely find it listed on gtabloggers.com. The website catalogues more than 200 local sites, and also serves as a social springboard for area bloggers.
“We have various interests and skill sets,” says Rannie Turingan, who helps run GTA Bloggers. “In the fall I had a couple of get-togethers specifically for folks interested in photography. We have also had groups of knitters meet up at Romni Wools to buy their wool and talk about their latest creations.”
Though some bloggers are technically inclined, many use templates which allow a person simply to log into a website and start writing. Personal blogs run the gamut from confessional to cagey. Yet whether it’s Tim the ex-Jehovah’s Witness (www.tc123.com) or Tim the gay bartender (ersatz-sprocket.blogspot.com), it can be hard not to get sucked into these people’s lives.
“What’s up with guys who come back to see me again and again until they get up the nerve to ask me out but never think to tip?” writes Timothy Sprocket, the bartender, in his blog Ersatz-Sprocket. “I work in a bar. I am a whore. Tip me. We’ll go from there.”
Bloggers who post personal content, like angst over a relationship or troubles at work, must constantly weigh the cathartic benefits of writing for themselves and the potential risks of opening themselves up too much in public.
“Even though I know I have readers, I’ve decided to not hold back, and write as if no one was reading,” says Sprocket.
Indeed, the most interesting blog writing seems to be a result of the author doing just that. Raymi the Minx (at raymitheminx.blogspot.com), writes unabashedly about her experiences with sex, drugs, and psychiatrists — despite knowing that her mom reads her blog. She likes the micro-celebrity status her blog confers.
“The truth is yes, I do want to be famous, I do want to walk down runways with stilettos and a big high ponytail and heroin eyes and I want to say clever things to reporters about toothpicks and olives and all that fancy fake important stuff and I plan to get all this in the most lazy way possible. So yes, this blog, my vehicle to importantsville. My pictures, my videos, my book, karaoke, my vagina too,” writes Raymi, who occasionally directs her entries in the form of open letters to author Douglas Coupland.
At their best, weblogs are glimpses into lives far more interesting than one’s own. But more often than not they tend to be navel-gazing, chronicling lives just as mundane as the next.
Quotes like “I just had my first Terry's Chocolate Raspberry.” or “today I went to my Toastmasters meeting,” are surprisingly common.
Thanks to blogs, the idlest musings can now travel at fibre-optic speed to the friends and voyeuristic strangers who have added checking the latest blog entries to their daily routine.
And even those musings might be grounds for a connection with that special someone. Aaron Adel, who asserts his group-run humour blog The Daily Nonsense (www.thedailynonsense.com) is “the furthest thing from a girl magnet,” met his girlfriend through the site.
You never know who might want to hear about your Toastmasters meeting.