So, at the beginning of my Junior year at MSA, I wrote a blog about, well, blogs. Specifically, I wanted to discuss what exactly a blog was. The answer that I had come across was that a blog was anything that the author decided it would be. I had decided on the answer spur of the moment, mostly due to the lack of desire to write a blog in the first place.
Now, three weeks away from graduation, I want to revisit this topic… but with a twist! Instead of asking “What is a blog?”, I’m going to talk about “Why is a blog?”. Well, I specifically want to talk about my feelings towards the act of blogging during my time at MSA.
To begin with, I would like to say that I still mostly agree with the answer I had to what a blog is. It is, indeed, whatever the author intends it to be. However, there is one thing that a blog has to be, no matter what. A blog absolutely must deliver a message of some kind. Not towards its readers, but towards the writers future self. It is a time capsule, a frozen piece of the author’s voice, their ideas, their likes and dislikes. So, anything, in theory, could technically qualify as a blog. A blog could be considered an important historical record, a glimpse into the past. So, my final answer to the question of what a blog is: history. It’s history, plain and simple.
Anyway, let’s move on to the main question. Why is a blog? Blogs are often thought of as public digi-diaries and can often be just that. Now, I’m not going to discuss anything like “author intent” while trying to answer this question. I want to talk specifically about my experience with the form.
So, I don’t like blogging. I think it’s a waste of time, especially when limited to the type of blogs that I was during my senior year. What was once absolute freedom became confining, and frankly quite exhausting. The importance of blogs is the freedom that they can give to people to simply write whatever is on their mind. So, when you take that away, the blog loses its value.
I do not speak for everyone when I say that, of course. This is more so my own unique perspective on it. I don’t think that I’ll be writing more blogs in the future once I’ve graduated, but you never know for sure. If I do, be sure to expect any imaginable absurdity. That way you’ll be prepared when I write about something even more absurd than that.
So here’s the climactic finale that you’ve been waiting for. Here’s the answer to the question. Here it is!
Q: Why is a blog?
A: I have absolutely no idea.
