Blogs and the Expanding Ego

I personally have been laughing a bit about blogs, myself and the expanding-ego phenomenon of bloggers since the day I started a blog.

What has been funny to me personally is Myself -- the fact that as a pre-blogging writer (it’s still a day job) I’ve always shied away from assignments requiring that I express any sort of personal opinion to the public.

And yet … somehow, here I’ve started a blog, sending out ME, ME ME echoes into the universe – even while I consciously realize someone other than myself might be reading this.

I think this may be why I found one particular article about blogging and ego by one blogger so amusing.

So, with the risk of feeding into another writer’s expanding ego (which I actually think is a wonderful idea if the writer is any good — I theorize that good writers, like any good artist, understand negative forces too well — they deserve a little positivity,) I was compelled to excerpt from a MicroContent News article by (http://www.microcontentnews.com/) John Hiler, a Microcontent.com writer, one of the builders of Xanga.com and the aspiring someday author of the article Mental Illness of Bloggers: The intersection between blog and ego.

John, who in his archived writings about blogs and ego has compared blogs to “the stars of a Greek tragedy, with the tragic flaws to match, ”writes,


" My problem isn't with blogs written by dumb people. My problem is with blogs written by smart people, when they have egos like a runaway train. Hmm, even that's a bit reductionist. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not entirely a coincidence that blogs and ego so often go together. In other words, it's not my fault ... my blog made me do it! (this is my version of the "Twinkie Defense"). There seems to be something about the blog format itself that seems to encourage an almost cancerous growth of our egos."

It does seem John may be on to something here.

So, John – if you read this, here’s to keeping blogger egos in check!

As the best blogger in the universe, I know I’ll be doing my best.