The Butt Ugly Weblog

I'm an ordinary person

It's always difficult to determine whether I should write in Finnish or English, when commenting Finnish blog posts. I think I'll keep writing in English though, because I know there are a bunch of expats reading this, who otherwise would get no exposure to the Finnish blogosphere.

Saara writes an ironic response to a recent Finnish article in Aamulehti by Juha Seppälä. This journalist had went through some of the blogs from the Pinseri list, and wrote a dismissive article on why "bloggers are just ordinary people who say boring things." (Some more commentary in Finnish at Anita Konkka's blog.)

Chris Anderson (the Editor of Wired-magazine) said that (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here) "as an editor my responsibility is to reach to as many people as possible, but as a blogger I just want to reach the 20 people in the world I can exchange thoughts with."

That's exactly what matters. Most blogs (WAY most) in the world have less than 20 readers. They are the "long tail" of blogging. They are the ones where people post pictures of their kittens and talk about their ordinary life using ordinary words. And other ordinary people read their blogs - but those are the people that matter to the blogger himself.

Blogging is about people. Everyone of us tries to be with people that we like and can share things (ideas, thoughts, feelings, stuff) with. We call them friends. Exposing a carefully selected part of yourself to the public is just that; sharing with people that feel the same way as you. Even the people who passionately hate something and gather a large group of enemies, tend also to gain some supporters. You write in public - people react. Who cares if it's ordinary? Ordinary matters to a large number of people. It's their life and their interests.

I don't really know most of the people reading this blog. I seem to get about 600-800 unique readers/day (2000 page views), most of which seem to be from random googlers, so perhaps I have about 200 regular readers. I know some of you, but I can only imagine what kicks the rest of you get from reading my ramblings. Granted, I also get a bit of kick out of thinking that so many people find me interesting. But truthfully, I really care only about a few of you. No offense.

I love an ordinary person. But she's also a blogger. I like to read what she writes, even though we share the same bed, because when things are written they take on a form that is different from your day-to-day life. The words on the screen have been carefully thought out, their order not as random as when we talk. Paradoxically I think it makes me understand her better, as sometimes it's easier to write your thoughts than it is to speak them.

But that's just me. Your mileage may - and should - vary.