Felicity & Ferocity

Ha! This is great, but I really think Funke oughtta split the royalties! :)

I will say in response to Funke is that with email you're writing to a specific person (or group of people) for a specific purpose, whereas for a blog entry you can muse along any sort of random thing.

My Favorite Pens entry, for instance, would look very different as an email. THe only person I could probably really legitimately address it to is Sarah Barker, and then it would probably read like: "Dear Sarah, Remember those pens your grandparents gave you that we made those awesome timelines out of? Well, I've been looking for them everywhere, and I ifnally just ordered some off the internet. I'm so excited." (That's just how boring my emails are.)

But as a blog entry, it becomes a crafted story that I write for my amusement, post on the internet, and then I learn that other people who I wouldn't have thought to address concerning the pen issue, actually feel strongly about their pens, too.

So blogging works for me. :) Though I certainly don't abandon email for more personal communication. The purpose for the two media are very different.

I like blogging because it shifts the burden of responsibility onto other people instead of me: I don't have to spend time writing the same boring details of my life more than once. I'm just selfish like that. :)

No, actually I like it for a better reason. I've never been very good at carrying on a conversation with just one person. I'm not that talkative, so often, unless my conversational counterpart has a lot to say, the conversation stalls and sputters until it finally dies a cold, clammy, painful death. Blogs, being a public forum, enable me to hold better conversations by having multiple people join in.

I just like the word "blog." Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog. Uh huh.

Is it ironic that here we are blogging about the differences between email and blogs? Consider for a moment if Rachel had sent out a mass email along the lines of Jeannette's pen story to everyone she knows:

"Hi everyone! Here is a thought that a friend of mine had about email versus blogging? Hope you all enjoy!" *post to follow*

What would we have done then? Probably read it (unless you're like me, who loaths email as a form of communication in a matter that only the Luddites of yore could have ever rivaled [ok, if Rachel sent me an email, I would take the time to read it, unless it was one of those unholy forwards that everyone seems to enjoy assaulting my inbox with]), maybe wondered if this friend's opinion was worth taking the time to read (unless, of course, she said it was Sarah, who we know to be witty and creative), and then formed an opinion: Agree! Disagree! But would we have responded? Eh... perhaps. But the blog, as a "public forum," allows for both dialogue and creativity in a manner that email seems to quash, if not altogether persecute.

So really, all I'm saying is that I agree with both Mott and Jeannette. I mean, I don't think I've ever had an email discussion with 6 other people about polygamy, or human motivations, or the idosycrosity of the english language when it comes to curse words...

And where else can you earn eProps? (Ok, obviously not on Covblogs, but not on email, either!!!) Those things are like the currency of the Xanga world. Heaven help you if your post doesn't earn you any eProps. Sometimes I'll check my blog 10 or more times a day to see if anyone new has commented or left eProps. I know that sounds pathetic, but it is unfortunately true...

Alright, that's all I've got for now.

-Joel Out

Yeah, I'm an eProp whore too. Except I think I tend to value my posts more by the number of comments I receive rather than the eProps. But, being the computer master of a workplace with broadband means that I hit the reload button on my blog about every fifteen minutes.

It's sick.. sick, Sick, SICK I tell you. If I attended Wheaton I'd probably have been sent to a institution for the mentally disturbed by now for my devient behavior. :)

Haha... that's hilarious. I thought about using the term "eProp whore" when I was commenting, but something about Rachel still makes me think twice before dropping the term. That and I am trying to quit swearing altogether. I realized about a month ago that I am far too intelligent to have to resort to a form of communication which involves turning my brain *off* I know that sounds conceited, but there it is. Although Ra's castrated deer joke in Deleware should have dispelled any qualms I might have had about using such language on her blog :)

HEY NOW> I... I... heh ... uhm.. THAT's NOT FAIR!

I think that blogging has somewhat of a hospitable feel to it: inviting people to start a conversation in your own literary space. It's like hosting almost. And, it's a lot like hanging out with good friends: always more to discover about them, always more to Drudge Up from their Past... ;)
I too enjoyed Ben's blog on the idiosyncracies of the english language on certain words. Where else can we cultivate such mediums of conversation?

If you don't already know it, this joke is plum hysterical. You'll have to ask me in person. JP can't tell it to you: he's giving up swearing.

I like Rachel's perspective: blogging is in an invitation.
Whereas email is an imposition.

Since the concept of eProps is a bit lost on me, I will say, that often I judge the value of post by number of comments left on it. But my most recent trip to Cov had people I didn't even know coming up to me saying "I read your blog faithfully!" I learned I had a larger readership than I realized. THese unspoken masses haunt me a bit. The responsibility to them is turned up. :)

Yea, blogging about blogging is sort of like having an email conversation with your roommate sitting a row away from in the Sanderson computer lab.

I remember those times... those were good times... *computer screen goes dark. computer explodes*

Hmm. I guess you could say that another downside to email is that people can procede to have all sorts of conversations about your own ideas without you. Is there some sort of copyright law on internet distribution--I want "fun-ness" royalties to come back to me.

But, I, the underprivileged, do not have a blog. I do not know how to get a blog. I read other people's entries in "The Joy of Blogging" with envy. So I stick to impositional email, engaging in class warefare struggles.

Actually, the whole email about blogging vs. email started as a joke, satiring Thomas Friedman. politics, and philosophy. I am highly amused to see so many people discuss it so strongly and so seriously.