Passengers

The truths in the world may be undermined because of me. Because of us. The world is so full of self-proclaimed professionals, yet here we are - bloggers or tiny voices in social media - giving away our most valuable 'insights'. Why do we intend to appear as experts? Who are we? 

After my apprehensive forays into this visual diary this holiday, I was attempting to figure out the reason to why I started it in the first place. It's the beginning of 2015, and before I step forward to continue this venture afresh, I wanted to contemplate on it's purpose and the repercussions I'm bound to inflict on others. Then, somehow by coincidence, I encountered a trigger that led to my explanation.

I was clearing up some of my old assignments and came across an excerpt of a book by Andrew Keen, an indie author. The book, The Cult of The Amateur, is about our liberal, user-generated, digital world. At risk of sounding like a mundane non-fiction psychological writer, this might actually resonate with everyone, bloggers or not.  I discovered a few points in the excerpt that was appropriate to ponder over about the consequences of blogging in the world.

"What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis."  

"As former British Prime Minister James Callaghan said, 'A lie can make it's way around the world before the truth has the chance to put it's boots on.' That has never been more true than with speeding, freewheeling, unchecked culture of today's blogosphere."

In short, Keen was explaining how truths are being undermined and professional work are undervalued by user-generated information like blogs. In that assignment, I had to decide if I agreed with him, and at that point in time, I carelessly did. I was too narrow-minded to realise that there were people who were frustrated with Keen for mocking the human race and being a luddite. Keen assumes the entire world is foolish, when even the most shallow of us can judge the validity of the facts on '.org' and '.blogspot.com'.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor who lived long before the birth of our virtual network, but he did mention a quote that seemingly describes this infinite cyberspace.

Perhaps truths are not entirely being undermined because of blogs. Perhaps as much as there are countless of user-generated information out there, people know what to trust. They are their own appointed arbiters of content and they make the decisions on what to believe. They decide whether they intend to shield themselves from the cacophonous media environment.  

It's really crowded and noisy in here, but let's think for ourselves and continue to keep an open mind. We have the ability to make our own decisions on what to trust.

Besides, the unmapped network of blogs or YouTube videos play a string of discordant voices. All gets lost in this virtual insanity. But it's vital for identity development. 

Sites with user-generated information like blogs, allow us to 'perform' for others and take us on a journey of self-discovery. This was explained by a psychologist, Danah Boyd. Facing a mirror to reflect on our own performance, we 'perform' to attain the reactions of others, while making an audacious move to expose ourselves shamelessly in the process. Maybe this answers the question to who we actually are. 

We're passengers of a plane to that distant island of Approval, clad with just a shifty passport. We're in an airport passing a series of counters, checkpoints after checkpoints, to garner that mere ticket of Acceptance. We're living in the digital age of egotism and the search for recognition, parading itself as mere socialisation. 

Some might agree, but you know, you can't trust me either. 

Lettering by me, Photo by me. 

This post is about the consequences of blogging and why we still do.