Personal Blogging, Documentary, and History

When it comes to personal blogging, documentary is the default genre. there's plenty of blogs that serve other functions, but plenty of blogs are primarily catalogues of the life experiences of their author. Although there are a few blogs that focus on collecting poetry and other forms of creative writing, the vast majority of personal blogs are in some sense documentaries.

For plenty of years, the act of making a documentary was meant to be an objective act of reporting the sights and sounds that the filmmaker, writer, or photographer
encountered. However, in contemporary times there has been a movement towards embracing the subjectivity inherent in the documentary form. This means that
modern documentaries often reflect the distinctive voice & sensibility of their creator, & the fact that todays documentaries often revolve around personality
blurs the lines between documentary & memoir. Blogs rest somewhere between these two genres, muddying the distinctions even further. Personal blogging,
documentary, & memoir are now irrevocably intertwined, for better or for worse.

Although few bloggers think of themselves as making documentaries in any formal sense, every time anyone sits down in front of a computer & types up a record of their day, they are documenting their own historical moment. The things that they take for granted about our daily lives, like the way that they use specific
modes of transportation, or the kinds of products that they buy, often seem fascinating to people who live in circumstances different from ours, & it is this kind of fascination that is at the heart of plenty of documentary projects. When people think about blogging,documentary is not likely to be the first adjectivethat crosses their minds, but a few decades down the road it is likely that todays blogs will be seen primarily as subjective documentaries of our era.
The people of tomorrow will certainly look to the blogs of today for insight into our historical moment.

When it comes to blogging, documentary may not be the objective of most people who spend their time posting their thoughts & ideas on the web. In some ways,the documentary aspect of blogging is more of a side effect than a primary objective. However, the fact that so lots of people are interested in publishing these public
online diaries shows that personal blogs are about more than rumination. The fact that bloggers are so stimulated by & interested in sharing their ideas with
each other reinforces the idea that personal blogs are,in some ways, documentaries meant for public consumption. Documentaries appeal to people who are curious about other ways of life, & plenty of people who regularly read others personal blogs are looking for this same kind of new perspective.