EastGirlsWest

So I’m only a week or so in to this whole blogging thing, but so far, I rather enjoy it. Much of my desire to blog came out of my obsessive reading of others. And thinking, “Wow. I could never write that well, be that interesting or exploit the medium to it’s fullest potential in such a clever, meaningful and aesthetically pleasing way.” All true. How that translated into the launch of East Girls West is a mystery.

This is all to say, now more than ever, I am thinking about blogging, reading even more blogs, ruminating on what it means to be a blogger and what sort I aspire to be. Yesterday I read something that I clearly need to share with you, Readers, since I both brought it up at a party last night and lay in bed thinking about it this morning while my dreamy domestic partner was still sleeping.

I found the following post at the famous Jason Kottke blog. While Jason was away on his honeymoon for two weeks, he had a couple of friends fill in for him. And the end of their substitute stint, one Greg Knauss had this to say:

The theory: There are two kinds of bloggers, referential and experiential. Kottke is one. I, now two weeks too late in realizing this, am another.

The referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned elsewhere: Look at this. Referential bloggers are reporters, delivering pointers to and snippets of information, insight or entertainment happening out there, on the Intraweb. They can, and do, add their own information, insight and entertainment to the links they unearth — extrapolations, juxtapositions, even lengthy and personal anecdotes — but the outward direction of their focus remains their distinguishing feature.

The experiential blogger is inwardly directed, drawing entries from personal experience and opinion: How about this. They are storytellers (and/or bores), drawing whatever they have to offer from their own perspective. They can, and do, add links to supporting or explanatory information, even unique and undercited external sources. But their motivation, their impetus, comes from a desire to supply narrative, not reference it.

It’s clear I’m headed for the latter, although I tend to have more interest in and respect for the former. I suspect the world needs more navigators, and fewer people who just throw up their life on everyone else. But the truth is I’m 34 years old, and not likely to change. No doubt I’ll keep throwing, and I hope someone keeps reading.

So now I’ve written the ubiquitous post on blogging, linking to another blog where a guest-blogger blogs about his blogging theories. It’s all so meta.

And with that, I’m off to pilates class.