In Girl Wide Web Mazzarella states “The hybrid public and private spaces in which girls choose to publish their blogs are a testimony to their insistence upon being heard” (186). I think that this is one of the most important factors to consider when looking into girls’ blogging communities. We learn in this chapter that blogging communities are more often formed around constructs such as age and gender. My experiences from growing up as a girl taught me that girls are extremely competitive with each other and in this situation it is not always easy to find companionship. However, when a girl writes a blog she is demanding to be heard and the people that read her blog are helping by providing a space where she is heard by her peers. We learn that Jasmine’s blog “that her friends have always helped her get through life, but now she felt she no longer had the support of her friends” (191). The blogging community of girls that she was involved with gave her the support she thought she was losing in real life.
While I do follow several blogs today, I feel like I was more part of a blogging community when I was younger. When I was a teenager I was homeschooled and so I relied on my online friends a lot for support. While we all were nearly the same age and all female, there were many other cultural factors that we had in common. One drawback was that I was unable to actually go out and experience things with my friends and so I spent many more hours online than I probably should have. Mazzarella explains that blogs can be used “as discursive spaces to negotiate identities and represent themselves in ways that often challenge mainstream representation of girlhood” (187). I felt a lot more comfortable blogging and communicating in an online community of girls than in real life. I believe that it was because the nature of our relationship was to be supportive rather than how in real life girls are often expected to be competitive (especially over male attention).
According to Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, adolescent girls engage in journaling(a form of blogging),as a means of combating the silencing effects of girlhood. Thus,one can easily argue that blogging is the evolution of journal writing. However, unlike journaling, blogging enables girls to share a community space online. I can see your point when you said that you felt more comfortable blogging in an online community as opposed to real life. You simply do not have to face anybody physically, and you can provide and/or receive feedback.
ReplyDeleteI believe that part of what lends to the ability to create more nuanced friendships on the Internet, rather than in one's "real" life is the ability to externalize identity for a much broader pool of possible readers. In reducing one's personality to the sum of its greatest parts on a blogging platform of millions, many girls may find it easier to find positive friends who share interests than in a ninth grade classroom, for example, where social awkwardness or undesirable interests can make one a social pariah. "Safe spaces" are a natural byproduct.
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