A Lot Like Fame

This is Rob. A relatively famous blogger. If you know me (and you don't, of course, not really), you know I like reflections. So his glasses bouncing the light in the atrium at the Omni Hotel in Austin (I think) is no accident. Or a happy accident. This picture (taken in 2003) was taken at an event called Journalcon. Or when it was in Austin "Web Writer's Weekend." I think this event has expired. People who wrote on the World Wide Web (before it was 'the WEB') in what we naively called 'journals' (named for their real world analogs) had started gathering in 2000 and continued until 2005 when, I think, their San Diego gathering fizzled a little. After all, by 2006 there were millions of self-styled bloggers and they called themselves that. And My Space was popular. It no longer meant much to meet with the 'other web writers.' Everyone seems to be a web writer now. I see that 2007 will bring a big convention with a lot of shameless convention pandering. But these old journalcons were really about people meeting in the real world who had connected through their journals.

Anyway, I only went to the event because (1) it was in Austin; (2) I was only a year into retirement and still figuring out what to do and thought going to stuff like this and film festivals would someone reveal a higher, creative purpose to me.

I enjoyed it. At the time, I took care not to promote my journal, not to put it in rings and such, not to encourage people linking to me. I stopped this later and started promoting my WEB writings a little but still not much.

So where's the unintended consequence in all this? Well, here goes. Because of these journals, er blogs, ordinary people reveal a part of themselves to anyone who happens by. Some strangers, some people who know some real world version of the person. It creates a vast amount of one-way communication. Some journals have comments but they aren't really conversations. And people can happen by and just catch up on the life of a friend or acquaintance (or a perfect stranger) in much the same way that we can keep abreast of Brittany's impromptu hair styling and tattoos through all the media.

And thus we learn a little about the one-way communication of fame. Even if we control what is written about us (by doing it ourselves!), there are people out there reading, finding out what we are thinking and feeling and seeing. But we don't know the same things about them. I never fail to be shocked at a party when someone whose name I can't remember starts talking intimately about my 'blog.' And people who I count as friends read and keep up with me in a way. But their e-mails are few and far between. It's an unequal communication. Not unlike fame.

Whenever I see Rob in real life (which I have a very few times), I am a little embarrassed. I feel this way around celebrities, too. I feel like I know more than I have a right to know.