Category: People

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was surprised at the amount of in-person connectivity that occurs as a result of meeting people through the Internet. In comments attached to a previous posting, Community, Sharon mentions meeting her significant other online and Medley talks about meeting her husband through their mutual weblogs.

Kath states:

Something about meeting through the mind first rather than the normal route – meeting people face to face first – seems to make a stronger bond.

So much of what we are is communicated through our expressions, the looks in our eyes, the movement of our hands; stripping this away to letters on a screen and still being able to connect to people that strongly blows me away. I wonder how many webloggers have met their true love and closest friends online?

And if we don’t connect physically, will the friendships fade in time?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was catching up on all my weblog reading when I noticed the photos of dishwashing aids at Mr. Delacour’s home. At first, I didn’t think anything of it until I realized that the photos were taken by Jeff Cheney here in San Francisco. In fact, there’s a good chance I’ve passed these same little scrubbers in my own Safeway trips.

And then it hit me — not only is weblogging changing the way we write, it’s changing the way we behave.

Think about it. Jeff reads Jonathon’s posting on Dishmatiques, notices something similar at his local store, captures said images with a digital camera to forward to Jonathon. We as webloggers see nothing out of the ordinary in this.

However, to the average Man or Woman on the street, here is this guy with a camera standing in the middle of a Safeway store taking photos of scrubbing brushes. To them, this is not normal behavior. Not even in San Francisco.

Continuing this same theme: How many of us go out for a dinner, movie, walk, or trip and come rushing home at the end of the experience knocking kid and cat out of the way so that we can get to our computers and record the event?

Now confess, when you’re out and about in your “day life”, don’t you find yourself reacting to events throughout the day with thoughts about how you’re going to write about said event in your weblog?

How many of us own a weblogging related mug? How many of us have our own little Cafe Press stores featuring our own little *weblogging mugs?

Then there’s weblog speak, such as:

“Oh yeah? Well Dvorak’s your mother!”

“Wear that dress and you’ll get a lot of buzz.”

“Come on, baby. Link to me!”

I was talking to my ex-husband on the phone, jabbering on about this weblogger and that weblogger and dropping terms such as blogging, buzz, Daypop, and Google, when I realized that Rob had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

I was no longer speaking English.

One day people will be able to pick webloggers out in a crowd because we all share the burden of the Weblogger Mark — looking deep into the eyes of a friend or loved one while saying the deceptively simple words designed to lure them into the silken threads of the trap:

“You should get a weblog, you’ll really have fun.”

We’re a virus, and there’s no cure.

*BTW, anyone want a Burningbird weblogging mug?