You Blog; I Blog:
The Blogging Phenomenon
BY KAREN LAM
Picture: Stephanie Cheng
The Internet is ubiquitous—anything is accessible to anyone with the simple click of a button. Personal websites, also known as blogs, are frequently updated online journals which contain topics that can range from the obscure to pressing current issues that everyone has an opinion on and it seems as though everyone has a blog.
The popularity of ‘blogging’ has grown over the past few years, in its early beginnings as a response to the vast amount of information available on the World Wide Web, blogs were mainly webpages that contained hyperlinks to other webpages as well as commentaries from other readers.
Simply put, blogs are changing the landscape of the Internet, the way we think and the way we communicate and interact with others.
York University students have been on the blogging bandwagon for years now at www.livejournal.com/community/yorku/ since August 2002, with almost 350 members to date. LiveJournal is one of many blogging services available for the web savvy attention seekers in all of us.
The York University Livejournal Community is always welcoming new members, posts are required to be York-related which range from carefully articulated opinions over the controversy of Vari Hall protests to irreverent musings
about the myth of cheap and healthy food on campus.
The success of the Yorku community has spawned its own sister group, yorkdrama in July 2004 at www.livejournal.com/community/yorkdrama/. “Make enemies, make friends, make love” is the message that the online yorkdrama group tells its members. The community strives to organize get-togethers and has the potential for Yorku community members to hook up outside of the cyberspace world.
Of course, other than the LiveJournal blogging communities, there are numerous personal York University student blogs available on other sites. One anonymously written blog, www.thetruthaboutyork.com, reveals the “life at York by an ordinary student who goes there.” Blunt, provocative, humourous, political, “The Truth about York” is a York University student staple.
The potential for blogs are enormous; it is not until now that the Internet can be viewed as an egalitarian domain serving as the pulse of the people. Thoughts can be organized, comments can be made: everyone has a voice. While ironically, everyone is anonymous in the Internet world, there is some sort of liberation in sharing our thoughts with strangers. So jump onto the blogging bandwagon and join the Yorku community, revel in the lives of others, and share your thoughts however irreverent they may be at www.livejournal.com, www.xanga.com, www.blogger.com, or any other blogging spot that you choose.
Correction: Last edition’s article review titled, “This Is No Modest Mouse” was written by Karen Lam.