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It's time for my annual "why I keep a Web log entry. "
Two and a half years ago, I started writing this pony thing. It was Rich's idea, and Liz did the gorgeous design.
Last year, when it became too Google-easy to trace the pony to my name, I balked at putting anything personal up.
I wrote this entry.
A year later, it has been my travel journal, a fundraising platform (it raised $1000 for NGO's in India), my soapbox, a braindump, graffitti, and a writing exercise.
Something about it being online makes it ''content''. And something about ''content'' makes it easier for me to keep writing (a significant, guilt-alleviating exercise after amassing a $20,000+ debt on a creative writing degree).
It started as a goofy thing that I and some people in Brooklyn and North Carolina did to entertain each other. I had never heard of the word blog.
Part of the initial excitement was that someone I didn't know could peruse it. My perspective changed radically when more people I did know started to read it (my mom, my cousins, Chris' dad...). People also have a tendency to think you are writing about them.
So while pony has taken on more functions and meanings each year, it has also meant that I feel a bit censored (less swearing, name-calling, job-venting etc.)
I have heard the Web called an emotionless medium. I remember at the film centre, Curtis Wong asked us: "when was the last time a Web site made you cry?" A cheesy question, for sure.
But when I think about it 3 years later, it is not the flash and shockwave pieces, but the stories and writing I have come across that have made me rage, question, celebrate and in some cases, er... yeah, cry.
From gratuitous to profound, I love the idea of thousands of people I would not have otherwise met, firing off words, recommending articles,musing randomly, wallowing depressingly, celebrating excessively and giving me the choice to read on.
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8.19.2003
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