Top 10 Reasons Why Germany has Less Blogs than Iran
I like this list so much, I just linked to it right here.
I especially agree with number "6. Blogging is not required."
Occasionally I'll mentioned to German friends that I maintain a blog, and they almost always respond with:
1. Indifference
2. Very, casual interest
3. An offer of cheap but exciting sex
For me, hitting other people's (Berlin-based) blogs continuously provides a wealth of both useful and enlightening information. So there.
Sometimes there's no better way to put your own measily life into perspective than to spend some time with the thoughts of young Americans struggling to come to terms with a climatologically-challenged foreign country and its citizens. Yes, this blog is actually titled "Germany Doesn't Suck . . . or does it?":
http://jbittner.com/germany/index.html
Or: http://homepage.mac.com/alison_petersen/iblog/
Which just goes to show you that there are those who blog, and those who blog.
When I've mentioned to colleagues (academics) that I have a blog, I get one of two responses. The first and most common is, "I could never put my personal life out there in public like that." The second is, "I'm just not that interested in politics." It's really tough to explain to people that there's more to write about than those things, and even harder to convince them that I mostly read other blogs that are neither exclusively about somebody's personal life nor very political. Let's see: maybe the category for what I read is "cultural criticism." Academics should understand that, right?
Posted by: heather | March 16, 2005 at 08:17 AM
Hi, thanks for the link.
'young Americans struggling to come to terms with a climatologically-challenged foreign country and its citizens'
That's not quite accurate, though.
Posted by: J | March 16, 2005 at 10:50 PM
Heather: I guess people simply assume that blogs are always personal/trivial ("Today I walked the dog!") Otherwise, I'm down with the "cultural criticism" thing. That would be in my official "Top 5 Reasons for Reading People's Blogs."
J: How so? And . . . I couldn't agree more with this: " . . . you’re expected to put everything in your trolley as soon as they ring it up and then take your trolley elsewhere to bag your groceries – if they have to wait for you, they sigh and get even more annoyed."
Posted by: Berlin Blogger | March 17, 2005 at 01:42 AM
Berlin Blogger, I'm not all that young (I guess it depends on your definition of young) and this isn't the first 'climatologically-challenged foreign country' I've lived in.
Posted by: J | March 17, 2005 at 07:17 AM
hey... this looks familiar. i know i've seen this somewhere.
Posted by: sattva | March 17, 2005 at 11:58 PM
Our blog is 1/3 Berlin based http://www.atlanticreview.org
Posted by: JW (www.atlanticreview.org) | June 10, 2005 at 02:20 PM