In Andrew Sullivan’s article “Why I Blog,” he attempts to answer just that—why he blogs. Although he conveys many different advantages and benefits to blogging, I feel that the main reason he blogs is because it different. In his article, he highlights how bloggers and their readers have a special connection—more than that of a newspaper writer and his or her reader. He also compares blogging to jazz music—it is just a different way of writing and reading in the same way that jazz is a different way of playing and listening.
As mentioned before, Sullivan describes the special bond that a blogger has with his or her audience. Since blogging is such a personal and open way of writing, the only way to describe the relationship, in Sullivan’s opinion, is as a friendship. Both exchange their own thoughts and ideas interpersonally, which forms the unique bond between them.
Sullivan also compares the blogs that we have today to the logs that sailors kept on ships years ago. These logs were the only concrete evidence of the memories and events that would happen on the voyages. Where a memory on the voyage would escape the mind, a person would simply have to reference the log in order to be re-reminded. In a similar manner, this is what blogs do for people today. Sullivan recalls many of the historical events that have happened since he has been keeping a blog just by going back and rereading his posts.
So, in conclusion, I feel that Sullivan keeps a blog and supports blogging because of the many conveniences that it offers. It is also much more of a spontaneous way of portraying thoughts to the world, where one can feed off of the criticism that others have to offer.
Sullivan's comparison of blogging to the logs on ships was interesting to me, so I liked your analyzation of that part of his essay. Its kind of fascinating to see how blogging and the ship's logs relate and how much we have advanced technologically.
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