John Grohol: Psychology of Weblogs
The most popular weblogs are those spearheaded by strong personalities, by dynamic individuals who have something to say. Not just about some random link, but about an ongoing theme in their lives that is displayed in a dozen different and unique ways every week, or even every day. These individuals (or groups of individuals) have opinions and you are going to hear them. In a social setting, face-to-face, they may be nothing like their online persona. Some are shy, ingratiating. Others are just as anarchic as their online writing is. But they gain a following for taking a stand, for sharing their innermost thoughts, not because they always take a popular stand or point of view, but because they take a point of view at all. They take one, over and over, day in and day out. The more controversial a person is, the more noteworthy (and often famous) they become. Look at Howard Stern, Dr. Laura, or Jerry Springer in the offline world.
The best weblogs and online journals, however, are not always the most popular. The most popular fall into the same trap as nearly anything driven by popularity – the need to outdo oneself, to remain on top. That pressure affects the writing, and it affects the mission of the person’s site (or in offline terms, the quality of their show). For proof of this, just look into the archives of any old popular weblog or online journal and see how the writing has changed. The subjects that were once original and thought-provoking often become stale, dry, and overwrought. The authors turn to commenting on the mundane, or take up meaningless causes, or rattle on about any old thing in their lives. They become more melodramatic in their writing, and start talking back to their foes. Instead of originality, they become self-referencing, circular, and ultimately, boring.
Sounds like he’s got a grudge against some popular webloggers… Grohol, by the way, is a Psy.D., not an MD, to whose online persona I long ago took an instant dislike after observing that he always insists on referring to himself in print as “Dr John Grohol”. Sure, Ph.D. and Psy.D. psychologists have earned a doctorate, but in a medical environment someone’s claim that by referring to themselves as a doctor they didn’t intend to create the misconception that they were a medical doctor is pure disingenuousness. He’s jockeyed for position as the world’s leading cyberpsychologist for at least a decade, but his Mental Health Page does have some merit. His online biography lets us know, among other things, what car he drives, the name of his pet, and (because he’s sure his readers are passionately interested?) his marital status.
Grohol’s name struck a chord with another weblogger who sent me this pointer to a search of references to him on MetaFilter, especially this thread, the gist of which relate to the fact that he was probably the anonymous author of deadat32, a pathetic attention-getting web project to which I paid little attention, as did few others, in which the writer wrote of his conviction that he would be, yes, dead at 32. (He pulled the plug before his 33rd birthday scheduled for September, 2001.) Grohol denied, rather unconvincingly in the face of a cabal of MetaFilter websleuths, that he was the deadat32 guy.
Fascinating little glimpse of web sociology and individual dynamics seemingly by a guy who studies them in others, and if true a warning to us all about the sordid little axes people grind in private behind their public faces.
