Another Columnist Loathes Blogs

Posted on February 13, 2006

Michelle Jarboe, a journalist for the News Record in Greensboro, NC, explains her loathing of blogs in a recent article called "Minority View: Send Blogging Bandwagon on its Way."

I loathe blogs, those Internet compendiums of people's thoughts on politics, news, gossip and their own navel lint.
During my last year in school, a close friend of mine constantly reminded me that I was falling behind. Blogs, he said, were the future

Michelle Jarboe admits that her friend was right about the future popularity of blogs but she says she now has to keep up with her friends via their blogs.

Gone is the intimacy of a personal phone call.
When I want to find out what friends are doing, I have to read their blogs.
Most of the time, that's just depressing because many bloggers I know suffer delusions of fantastic grandeur.
They seem to think managing a public forum is a little like being the hand of God, even if you are only posting about the price of your bikini wax or how boring it is to drink beer in your underpants on the sofa.
People I've known for years have become self-important. They just type, point and click, and suddenly they're experts in any field: Politics. Media. Deep thought.

Bloggers do have lots of opinions but even personal bloggers need experiences to write about now and then so the odds are that they will venture away from their computers at some point. But it may not be soon enough for the News-Record journalist.

After all, I've been stood up -- many times -- for blogs.
Nothing beats a Saturday night alone on the couch. Except, perhaps, a Saturday night when you're following your friends' real-time blog posts while fuming that they blew you off.

OK. Michelle Jarboe has a good point here. If you are blogging so much that you are ignoring your non-blogger friends you are probably being a little rude.