Character blogs

I thought I was done with character blogs for a while. Oh well.

Yesterday Steve Rubel posted on the subject: he’s against, and I’d say the commenters to his post are mixed. I was going to comment on his blog, but then it got too long so here we are back on mine.

IMO there is a place for good character, or fictional, blogs, just like we make place in our lives to read fiction and non-fiction. I have no strong opinion about any of the ones currently being discussed everywhere because I am not the intended audience so whether I like them or not is irrelevant.

As others have pointed out and I have blogged here, if people are reading and enjoying a character blog, it serves its purpose. Personally, I can’t dismiss the form of a character blog just because we haven’t seen the great one that makes it all clear. As did one of the commenters to Rubel’s post, I also see enough parallels with fan fic and roleplay games, which are extremely popular, to believe that fictional blogs are highly viable alternatives.

The other thing I wonder about is how the folks who are so vehemently opposed to character blogs feel about anonymous blogs…. I wrote about this yesterday. It is entirely possible for an anonymous blogger to adopt a persona that is quite different from his/her real-life personality. It is still true: on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.

When that anonymous blogger adopts a different persona, how is that different than a character blog? I can really think of only one significant way — the character blog may be fictional but it is honest. The person e-mailing Spencer Katt or commenting on Spencer’s blog knows Spencer is a character. On the other hand, the anonymous blog with a persona doesn’t admit it. To me, that is far more fake.

Now, not all anonymous blogs adopt a persona that is different from the writer’s real-life personality, so it is unfair to dismiss the form of an anonymous blog just because some anonymous blogs have turned out to be fakes. The character blog is the same — we should not confuse the form with the content.

I really like what Shel Holtz said in a post about The blog versus journalism debate. I urge you to read his whole post but for the purposes of today’s argument … err discussion… below is the part about character blogs:

"The rest of the piece is worth reading, but as the argument against character blogs continues with Steve Rubel’s dismissal of the tactic, I keep coming back to Craig’s notion of confusing the medium with the message. There’s a blogosphere with genuine voices of real people talking about things that matter, and that’s a great and powerful thing. There are also lightweight CMS tools called blogs that can be used for all kinds of other purposes. If Barbie starts blogging to little girls, it doesn’t diminish the power or value of the blogosphere, and little girls might just eat it up.

Whether we’re talking about news blogs vs. personal journals or “real” blogs vs. character blogs, let’s not forget that blogs are just a medium that can and will be put to multple uses (or what I have defined as “multiple evolutionary paths"). It’s the quality of the message that matters."

I agree 100%. Thank you for putting it so well.