Are Personal Blogs too Personal?
by David Peralty on August 23rd, 2006 
9 Comments
Recently, I put up a post on why people blog, and really it brings up another subject that has been highly debated in my family: personal blogs are too personal.
Many blogs, including my personal one, discuss my family members, friends, and people I come into contact with in great detail, and some of them don’t always like what I chose to write on the site. Interestingly enough, I have never been asked to take down a post by any family or friends.
Personal blogs allow people to rant and rave about their lives, and talk about the things that make them different, special, or even just keep them going from day to day, but what if it goes too far and offends someone or talks about something that another mentioned person feels is too personal? My family can be much more conservative than me when it comes to talking about life and whatnot. They don’t see the reason behind me even having a personal blog. Why does the whole world need to know how my life and family are doing? Why does the whole world need to know he activities and tasks that I take on?
Where do you draw the line with personal blogs? I know many bloggers only refer to their significant others with “codeword” names or their first initial, or have been told never to mention certain subjects.
It is an interesting problem for people out there that really want to connect with other people and let them into our lives and point of view as we have to try not to compromise the comfort of anyone else. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
That’s what my personal, anonymous blog is for. I keep my public one with my name professional and my personal one private. I use LJ for that, so I can really lock up posts that I don’t want getting out.
I get to let off all the steam, yak about things and so on. No names, no one’s offended.
It goes beyond friends and family being upset, anyway. A potential employer finds it, looks at it and goes, Euw. Or something. I simply don’t understand why some people hang out all their laundry under their name, but to each their own I suppose.
If we were talking about kids, then it’s not only too personal, but also dangerous!
I use pseudonyms for family members and friends who don’t wish to be otherwise identified. I also don’t talk about the details of my personal relationship.
Otherwise, it’s all go: therapy, family issues, school, mental illness, etc.
Having a personal blog that is somewhat semi-personal has given me the advantage of making friends from a distance. I do not have the time to casually socialize because my job requires it already. Semi-personal blogging is a way for me to open up as much as I want. I think the real question of personal blogging has a lot to do with how much control does a blogger have when blogging?
Personally, I would like to see more activism done online as opposed to strictly news regurgitation and personal rants.
I have struggled with this question. I started blogging with a very personal blog almost two years ago. My general rule of thumb is that I do not post anything that I would not say out loud in a public place to a friend. In other words, I do not blog about things that I would be concerned about someone overhearing in a public place.