Speaking into the Abyss

[barclay_barrios]

A prospective graduate student emailed me today to say he’s been avidly reading my posts here.  I was surprised.  Usually when I write these posts it feels like I am speaking into a vast and determinedly quiet void. (This fact is not helped be the amount of spam comments on Bits posts.  As I write this there are over 100 spam comments in my junk folder, mostly selling (of all things) Ugg boots). It’s strange to think about blogging into a void and I think I find it especially strange for me.  It’s been 10 years since I declared 2003 The Year of the Blog (and at least 8 since I even looked at that piece.  Kudos to me for coding a design that still reads well in a browser).  So much of the early scholarship on blogging in relation to composition talked about student writing for real audiences but as someone who’s been blogging here for years I have to admit I can’t imagine a more unreal audience.  I have no idea who you are and, frankly, I’m not at all sure you’re even there. Online writing has, of course, changed quite a bit in the intervening years.  There’s the rise of Twitter and microblogging, of course, but I am thinking more about Facebook.  When I write there I know precisely who my audience is because my profile is utterly locked down and because I have all my friends sorted into various lists.  Knowing the exact audience makes a huge difference. It’s no wonder then that I keep assigning papers in the courses I teach.  Students surely know that I am the audience, no matter what else we might pretend.  I used to find that somehow problematic but at this moment it feels enabling (though I don’t know my students would agree): there’s something extremely useful about knowing your audience precisely. So, void, how are you?  Ugg boots, you say?  Delightful.