MEMBER BLOG

Voice of the people
Posted on Monday, January 28 2008 @ 20:47:23 Eastern

I thought I'd change it up for my latest blog and talk about blogs themselves. I'm sure almost every blogger here knows about the Vox Pop competition but do you all know what it means? Well it's short for Vox Populi and means 'voice of the people', the Vox Pop is GR's attempt at giving us lowly meatbags a creative outlet on our favourite website and Vox Pop, thanks to the GRandmaster's efforts, is a pretty good read. But what about Vox Pop's little brother, the lowly blog? I say lowly because anyone can make a blog, it's like scrawling on a wall without any possible legal repercussions. This accessibility is great; it's revolutionary in fact, it allows everyone to have their say and not only that but put it in a place where it's available to potentially millions of people! Who wouldn't want that‽ Well lots of people want their opinion to be heard, that's why in the days before the blog (and even today) a quick wander around a common youth hangout will reveal a plethora of graffiti. Granted this messy form of self expression usually goes no further than stating someone 'wuz ere 2k8', someone 'luvs' some other lucky son of a gun or the neighbouring village/town/city/country are 'belendz' or 'wankaz' but it goes a fair way to describing the mental faculties of the talented individuals who managed to pop the top off the can of spray paint and scrawl these sad excuses for English on the tunnel under the train tracks inbetween pregnancies and cans of Stella. There are so many other ways people demand to be heard from protests in the street, adverts in newspapers, posters, even music and indie films and of course, we have blogs. The internet has increased a person's audience immeasurably in many cases, especially with the advent of Web 2.0 which means you don't even need a website to write whatever you want so for anyone who wants to share their opinion, or read the opinion of someone else, happiness is just a click away.

Except it's not that simple. For every person who is willing to put time and effort into their blog for the sheer pleasure of writing there will be several more who write whatever random piece of crap floats between their ears. I must wonder whether it's worth these individuals making the clicks and pressing the keys to make a blog asking for cheats, requesting full games available on site or simply saying 'Dr. Lizard'. It seems too much effort to share their modicum of thought but they're just as entitled to share their opinions as anyone else, regardless of how irrelevant their opinions are to the world at large. Having said that, this is certainly a severe disadvantage of this new found way of expressing oneself. We now have access to the opinions and beliefs of millions; in some cases it can be interesting and intriguing, sometimes a view into the other side, whatever that 'other side' may be and sometimes it can be pretty much the same as your own style but maybe... better. But then there are insights into a worse place, into simple or degenerate thoughts you may have felt more comfortable not being privy to, that's the price of expanding ones horizons.