A Benefit of Anonymous Posting

While I really found the conversation around the ethics of internet anonymity interesting when I was a student, that isn't really the direction I'm going when I say there are times I really enjoy being able to post anonymously.

Every once in a while I feel compelled to write or tell someone about something in response to an article or post on a website/blog, but believe it may be inappropriate to name names, as it were. Or I simply don't want to create a trail back to a private situation, for whatever reason.

Also, there have been times I want to better prepare myself to discuss a sensitive social topic, and see suggestions on ways to tackle a situation I want to handle in an informed, gracious, and thoughtful way. Example: "How do I constructively talk about rape culture and gender inequality with a male friend?"

Forums seem to contain a vast amount of opinions where you can find out what people think on every single possible topic under our sun. If people have experienced/thought it, there's a very good chance someone has written about it. All you have to do is examine Google's predictive search suggestions:

Oh people. The things we want to validate.

Despite the crazy, depressing, hearth-breaking, appalling results you can find out there (sometimes it is hard to have faith in humanity after browsing through internet forums), anonymous posting has created a really interesting tool to exchange thoughts and gather information. Particularly on issues that have deep social stigmas and potential impact on the people in your life.

Adding to the Noise

With my recent dearth in blogging, I've found myself wondering what the benefit of blogging might actually be? I mean, there are some people who have really interesting thoughts and perspectives on a whole slew of topics to share with the world that add value (professional sites such as Advice from a Risk Detective or Wonkblog). Or bloggers are documenting some interesting experience or experiment (e.g. studying abroad or cooking on a budget), or simply humorous findings or topical observations (e.g. A Walk in the WoRds). But what if you're like me? Casually gathering up some thoughts, putting them down, and sending them out into the interwebz with no particular goal (though I suppose we want someone to read these random thoughts). Adding another drop in the information ocean.

Is this type of blogging (that I'm doing just now) just adding to the noise?

In school, students were sometimes encouraged to blog on some topic they were passionate about, in order to build some sort of active, dynamic thought-profile. Some fellow MSIM grads managed to pull it off (Free Range Information and The Turning Grille). That professional perspective has always appealed to me, but I've never quite been able to pull off either the discipline nor the implementation. Perhaps it is because for the last decade, I've been writing 'professionally' - academically from high-school through grad school; now my career requires it daily. Regardless, I write blog posts as the fancy strikes me, sometimes regularly, sometimes with months in-between.

And I don't think I'm going to change. I think I'll always be happy to remain primarily a consumer of blog content, rather than a producer.