On blogging and House

I recently watched House Season 6, Episode 15 (I thought it was 14, but the giant web tells me it’s 15).

It is the episode where the team must diagnose Frankie, the blogger lady. It set me thinking on blogging and privacy and the reasons why I’m possibly not as good a blogger as I am a writer.*

At the beginning, Frankie’s husband is upset that she’s blogged their arguments.

"I want to be a big part of your life, but I don’t want to be a part of their lives!"

I think I respect the people in my life too much to just write about them. Surely they wouldn’t always like being mentioned in something which they cannot control. That’s why in the past I’ve used nom-de-plumes or initials only; and eventually just stopped trying to identify them to my [possible] readers.

Taub and House have an interesting banter.

CHASE: I don’t get putting my whole life online.

That’s what my ouma and parents say too.

TAUB: It’s not that crazy. Privacy is basically a modern invention. Towns used to be too small for anybody to keep any secrets.

I come from a similar set-up. I didn’t always enjoy it.

HOUSE: And knowing too much about each other is exactly why people leave small towns and move to the city.

And now I’m in a huge city and I .want people to know about my life. God, I can’t figure out what I want.

TAUB: And a lot of people choose to stay because in return for zero privacy you get community, connection.

HOUSE: Connections are for airports. For peole we have over 300 TV channels.

Irrelevant, but funny.

Or maybe it is relevant. Maybe those of us who blog are the ones who dislike that we live in an era of decreased human connection. So we use the very tool that has, to a large extent, caused that to remedy our problem.

I am too afraid to mention my name on this blog and too afraid to advertise the link because I am afraid my family will find it. I have secrets which I don’t want them to know. Like the fact that I haven’t studied at all for my very important Urogenital System test tomorrow.

And despite my efforts to hide it from them, I still do not blog about what I really want to, in fear that they do find it.

House says,

"If they don't kill you, secrets keep you warm and fuzzy."

* As it stands, does Blogspot have an app to tell you the hits you have? Wordpress does but I do prefer Blogger.