Blogging, or, Why I Haven't Been Doing It

Blogging, or, Why I haven’t been doing it

I must apologize. I haven’t been the best at updating my blog, but I have an excuse and a justification!

Excuse: Midterms were last week, and while finishing up my 1 credit Career Exploration class on the block, of course I waited till the last week to finish. I’m a procrastinator, but I’ll do something about it later.

Justification: Though I went on a two-week hiatus, I have returned like the Prodigal Son with a newfound furry and dedication (and a bunch of ideas that I can’t wait to put on paper…screen…in a column…whatever format works for you).

I’ve noticed a trend among college students, and I’ve been racking my brain to figure out if I like the trend or not. I’m going to force myself to take a “yay” or “nay” stance, because it’s too easy to fall into the middle ground. This trend is blogging.

I’m a blogger. I do it on and off, but I blog because I think…(begin sarcasm) no, I know that my opinion is the most correct and the most important (end sarcasm), and I want people to know.

I also feel that I have a personal obligation, not because my opinion is more important than others, or that I’m doing ground-breaking research, but because in an environment like Rexburg, where ultra-conservatism sometimes prohibits discussion, I want to be the voice that examines the harder issues from a logical and rational viewpoint.

There’s others out there who do the same thing. Paul H did a great job of looking at BYU/BYU-Idaho culture. The Voice, a small paper in Rexburg, is another. The BYU-Idaho College Democrats, when they ran their blog on a regular basis, looked on a national level of issues. Mike, from the Mike Experience did this as well. But these are some of the exceptions.

The trend now, especially among married students, is to start a blog for their family. Many times it is a place to post pictures, a place to let people know about what’s been going on with their life, and a place for their married friends to make comments. It’s become almost a community within a community, a ward within a ward, a clique within a clique within a ward within a community.

Sometimes the cheesiness of those blogs bother me. I Googled “BYU-Idaho IBC,” and aside from the 2 results from BYU-Idaho about their IBC program, there were 8 results in the first 5 pages on personal blogs with wives talking about their husbands in the IBC. There’s cheesy posts about lovey-dovey stuff that husbands have done for their wives, with pictures included. I’m not saying that husbands doing that stuff for their wives is a bad thing, but it’s the spirit of competitiveness and unrealistic expectations that I address here that bother me. I’m not trying to protect women. I am trying to protect the sanity of men. “Well Carly posted on her blog about how Tommy bought a dozen roses and picked individual petals and placed in a trail to their bedroom with him lying there in a red satin robe with candles and a bottle of chilled sparkling cider and the 6 hour BBC version of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ All we do is hang out in sweats, eat Jack-in-the-Box, and watch ‘Dumb and Dumber.’”

Can you see the problem?

Here’s my thought: Bravo for blogging. I’m sure my parents would love to see more pictures of Ash and I, and what we’re doing. It’s an opportunity to keep a journal without even knowing it, and being able to have that on the internet (as long as you remember the website address). Blogging is a good thing.

But it could be better.

Look for Blogging part 2 Tomorrow!