Teal deer are in season again!

[cleolinda]

Something that made me think possibly because I didn't want get down to work yesterday: Tell Me More! Why Do We Overshare?

I feel like there's been a rise in oversharing since blogs, online journals, social networks, etc., appeared in our lives--it's so much easier to confess your deepest secrets to names on a screen. You can't see the looks on their faces, for one. But the crazy woman cited at the beginning of the story was dumping all her business in real life, so if we're going to stick with the first idea, I'm going to have to say that it's carried over into real life--on a wider scale than it used to be; there were always people who had no sense of tact or boundaries--because, due to the effect of the internet (and reality television: the obligatory confessional cam, tucked away in private where the other housemates can't hear the steam the contestant is blowing off to millions of people ), revelation has become something of a currency. I think that, on some level, we're putting the cart before the horse: it used to be that we just hounded celebrities for the private details of their lives, and now we feel like spilling our own makes us important. I mean, it's what important people do, right? Go on TV and walk us around their houses and tell us their favorite recipes and make coy references to their love lives? Well, now anyone with a blog (or a Facebook, or a Twitter, or a...) can pretend to be just as sought-after. Important people get attention, and spilling our guts on TV or the internet will get us attention as well, and therefore that also makes us important, right?

... Right?

Well, actually it makes you really annoying most of the time, but some bloggers really do have the skill to write about very personal experiences in a meaningful or entertaining way. I don't know if I could be one of them, and I don't intend to find out. There are a few things I think people would consider to be very "personal" that I don't mind talking about--depression and mental health, for one, but you'll notice you only ever hear me discuss it in fairly detached terms. I tend to analyze what I think is going on with me; you're never going to see a post at two a.m. where I'm stutter-typing about how I've lost my will to live and I'm going to end it all. I don't mind talking about depression or medication in general because I don't feel like it's anything to be ashamed of, and in fact, I think people need to talk about that kind of thing more; they need to hear what their options are, that other people are able to get through it, that it's not weird or strange or unusual, but actually a fairly common ailment. But I'm always in control or speaking in retrospect when I talk about it; I'm not bleeding my emo all over you. That, to me, is why it's useful rather than TMI.

By the same token, this is why I'll tell you fun or nice or happy snippets about my friends and family, but not about fights or problems. And while I'm not seeing anyone right now, I suspect that talking about anyone I was going out with would be the worst idea ever. It would be one thing to tell you several weeks or months later about how I met someone, once the whole thing was a fait accompli, but right as it was happening? These things are so delicate in their early stages--they practically blow away like dandelion fluff, and I imagine that a public play-by-play of a first date would count as a pretty strong breeze. These are calls you have to make for yourself, but there's a point where, if you have a large enough readership (even over, say, fifty people), you have to decide whether you want to trade in the currency of TMI and make that your thing (which is fine) or if discretion is the better part of valor. Me, I have movies and books and things to talk about, and that works fine for me.

Comments

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

you'll notice you only ever hear me discuss it in fairly detached terms.

I think this is the key to discussing issues of that nature, along with humor, if one can pull it off. Additionally, I do kind of think there are some things that you can maybe write a blog about, but probably shouldn't just tell anybody about. When you're blogging or writing something out in text, you get the chance to explain a situation or a happening to your audience without interruption, I guess before assumptions get made. I think also a blog is kind of a more... immediately casual situation, right off the bat. You're there, talking for you or about you, in your blog, whereas a public gathering or outing isn't expressly "about you". That's just my take, I guess. I'm more likely to not be at all bothered by a TMI blog entry than I am by a sudden TMI conversation in real life.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

An interesting example is this blog--I'll have to find the url--written by a girl who used to be a freelance call girl when she was in college. But she's not now, so she is (or was) writing this (very explicit) blog/memoir recalling those days from a place of detachment. And she never gave out her real name or identity. So it's extremely personal and titillating and TMI and what-have-you, and yet... you have no idea whose TMI it is, and it's not happening now, like, "Let me tell you about my 'date' tonight"; she's talking about something she used to do from the perspective of "I enjoyed it at the time, but I had to get out for my own sanity." So to me, her blog was an example of how to do extreme TMI right.

[shoiryu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, kind of like that! That's a good example, heh.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Ah, here we are: http://collegecallgirl.blogspot.com/

Her September 17th entry is interesting, by the way--she says, basically, like she feels like sharing these experiences has done as much for her as it can, and she's not sure she wants to anymore (and then does not, in fact, share again). Which is part of what doesn't make her an attention whore (uh... so to speak), IMO.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Same thing with a couple of women who have posted to customers_suck. One used to be a sex worker in Britain and another is a stripper. Both are well-written, often funny and actually quite interesting. And it was not "let me tell you about my date tonight" but "OK, just because I'm a stripper/whore/whatever, what the hell makes someone think this is acceptable behavior?". I always enjoyed their posts - primary because they were focusing on events and incidents rather than personal issues or feelings.

The British woman has left the industry and is frank about why, while the other still write the occasional "Tales from the Boobie Bar" which is usually very hilarious.