Narcissism-Blogging

I remember putting “diary” on my Christmas list one year as a child and receiving a small, hard-bound volume secured with a metal latch and a tiny key. The key was as significant as the book and the notion of recording my thoughts. That I could write whatever I wanted, however embarrassing or inappropriate, and no one but me - the keyholder - would know, conferred grown-up ideas about the value and privacy of my own thoughts, not to mention the purpose of documenting my experience.

Personal blogs are the modern day version of the diary, but a digital megahorn has replaced the key. Today’s confessionals are written in the hope that strangers will discover them, and that a loyal following might even develop.

Is it narcissistic to publish one’s life story for public consumption? What about writing in a locked journal? Recording any thought or idea signifies that the writer considers it important enough to make permanent, which involves self-absorption, or at least self-interest.

The power of chronicling one’s own experience for others lies in the sense of connectedness that can result. When consuming others’ life stories, readers seek something either completely foreign or very familiar, something that makes them say, “oh my god,” or “oh, yes.” And even when reading about exotic subjects, most people are ultimately searching for a common thread, some element of the story that feels recognizable and suggests a universality of experience.

Even outwardly self-absorbed prose can be appealing when written beautifully or in an appropriate tone. In his 1976 review essay Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self, Gore Vidal’s review of Tennessee Williams’ 1975 Memoirs, the author assesses Williams’ recollections in relation to his own memories of their encounters and the community of expat writers with whom they associated in the late 1940’s. The approach might be irritating if not for Vidal’s brilliant execution:

“I picked up Tennessee’s Memoirs with a certain apprehension. I looked myself up in the Index; read the entries and found some errors, none grave. I started to read; was startled by the technique he had chosen. Some years ago, Tennessee told me that he had been reading (that is to say, looking at) my ‘memoir in the form of a novel’ Two Sisters….He must have [also] found it technically interesting because he has serenely appropriated my form and has no doubt forgotten just how the idea first came to him…”

With his careful use of witty language, ironic tone and a hint of self-deprecation, Vidal stops short of outwardly condemning Williams, humorously implying an influence on his friend’s work and causing the reader to want to keep going.

(Selections from both the Vidal essay and Williams’ Memoirs can be previewed free on Google Books.)

There are obviously also hazards in writing about oneself, particularly for the web. In C Jane, winner of the 2008 Webbie for Best Major Blog, Courtney Jane Kendrick records the details of her daily life as a Mormon mom in Provo, Utah:

"I do have a blog. Some blogs are family keepsakes with photos, mine is a literary blog. It is where I do most of my writing...I am a career blogger at this point, it is my work-from-home profession and it is more than a hobby. Different from a digital scrapbook of memories, here is where I focus on improving my thinking and writing skills. I have a private blog where I keep cute pictures of The Chief eating cake and petting cats, but my official blog is less mommy more me.”

This post, from July 2009, is not only poorly written, but it doesn’t particularly say anything. It reads like a passage you might find in an adolescent girl’s locked diary, like a self-therapy session in which the author is writing out loud, trying to convince herself that there is meaning to her efforts. Although an authentic voice or honest tone can attract readers, journaling online requires at least a nod to the possibility of an audience larger than oneself.

As author Lauren Slater explains in her essay, One Nation, Under the Weather, “No author authors alone. Every text is a joint construction of meaning.” That idea is particularly relevant to blogging, where there is potential to connect with an audience of millions, provided you keep that fact in mind as you compose alone at your computer. The sharing of personal experience makes both writer and reader vulnerable – to remarkable engagement or humbling alienation - requiring that the writer remember she has thrown away her key.