someone i was reading a few weeks ago said that she was not a blogger. rather, she was a writer who blogged. what she meant by that was that, as a writer (artist) she had no interest in interacting with her audience. rather, she was happy to write, share her... whatever ..., and then sit back and read the responses -- or not -- without ever engaging the commentary -- good, bad or indifferent.
performance artists, it seems to me, are more like artists and writers in the sense this woman meant. i also think of this in terms of something George Trail once said to me, which I think he maybe got from Bloom: that writers never really like their audience. They sometimes actually despise them. Think they are kind of dolts. (Don't blame him on this, I may have gotten him entirely wrong).
When he said that to me, it reminded me so much of the band I was once associated with. That's exactly how they thought of their audience. Almost kinda dumb or not to bright. incapable of reallyl getting what they were saying. It was a badge they wore, proudly. I've gotten that sense from other artists.
Or think of the way that a lot of artists respond to people who write in and ask them, "What did you mean by this painting (lyric)(novel)?" With regard to lyrics, I am familiar with not a few who get really irritated by any attempt to pin down the meaning. Or who get all coy about it, often because, in fact, they don't know. An ex, a drummer, and fan of Neil Peart, introduced me to Peart's responses to his audience which were patient, but were always undergirded by a kind of irritation with his audience -- a disdain that they just weren't ever going to get "art", so whatever. He'd respond, but he'd make it clear that he was irritated by the demand to fix meaning or to dissect the creative process. (that was long ago, so maybe misremembering details. Peart fans will correct no doubt)
Bloggers who don't think of themselves as artist, simply observing and cataloging reactions to their art, are typically people who like a lot of control over their meaning. Which is why they need to get involved in debates over what they truly meant: their ego is at stake in terms of getting it right. They see themselves as right about what they are saying, and are not interested in allowing mulitiple meanings about what they've said to flourish.
Another thing i've noticed is the tendency for bloggers to totally love a level of openness they achieve on the internet. Women especially tend to revel in the feeling that they can say exactly what they want. They feel liberated from the constraints of a society where they often have to mince their words, repress what they really think, etc.
So then they build up this online persona and community with others who follow the development of this 'freely speaking self' before them.
Then! It finally happens. The self they construct online becomes wedded to the self -- persona - they have cultivated. If you have cultivated a persona of loving acceptance of the disabled, for instance. If you become known as a crusader for such issues, and so forth, but then say or do something that appears to contradict this persona, all hell breaks lose. And the persona is attacked for hypocrisy, etc.
In other cases, what happens is that the person, who may have constructed an understanding of themselves as X, say a feminist with a really great het relationship embracing all kinds of feminist values. No longer is she free to speak her mind. If, for instance, there's trouble in paradise, said feminist with the great egalitarian feminist relationship with a man no longer feels free to say, "Woah. he's a sexist pig." (Or whatever. It can be almost any example ...)
These bloggers then no longer feel they can "share" freely. They cultivate not just regular, expected enemies, but enemies among their former readers and fellow bloggers. That is, they no longer feel free to say whatever they want. They realize they belong to a community with normative expectations that stifle some forms of thought and behavior, just as in real life.
These bloggers usually have what is called a "flounce": they flounce their skirts and huff and puff and tell everyone how pissed off they are about everything and then say that they are so hurt and upset and now they are going to leave the internet for ever and ever and ever. They are being oppressed by everyone damn it. Rarely, however, do they stay gone. They are drawn back into the drama of community life in a way that artists seem to stay aloof from.
some stay away and just fire up new blogs where they take along their worshippers and admirers who won't give them any shit. ?and the cycle starts all over again.
I can't fathom artists with their aloofness, tendency not to want involvement in community, etc. etc. interested in engaging in such kinds of communal sharing. They don't seem to have their egos -- their sense of self, their identity -- attached to being "in" a community.
rambling,
shag