Why Blog?

A few days ago, I got to wondering just why I blog in the first place.  It surely wasn't for the public acclaim, fortune and fame.  It wasn't because I had something important to say... or indeed, anything to say at all.  So why do I do it?  Why do I spend hours staring at a computer screen, trying to convey... something... to the various denizens of the intartubes, most of whom don't care what sort of effort and research I may put into a post?

I've read that the primary reason that bloggers blog is narcissism, that they think so much of themselves that they figure that everybody will be enthralled by their every word.  I suppose for some (most?) that's the case: look at the preponderance of "I Love Me!" blogs, facebook pages and tweets out there.  Anybody who knows me would immediately start laughing at the thought of me being a narcissist... probably to the point of hypoxia. 

I started The Pond all those years ago because the Official First Reader of The Pond, friend Mallory, suggested that maybe some other people might find the e-mail I sent her after every F1 race funny too.  After some poking and prodding from her, I finally gave in.  After a short post about Azumanga Daioh caught the eye of Big Papa Pixy Misa, founding father of MuNuVia (and later MeeNuVia), he invited me to join his burgeoning empire.  And here I've sat, ever since.  I reconnected with The Official First Friend of The Pond, Vaucaunson's Duck, more or less through The Pond, an amazing feat since we pretty much hadn't spoken much since our time in high school.

Somewhere along the way, Steven Den Beste started to linkify me for reasons that baffle me to this day.  Via that connection, I starting conversing with the Brickmuppet off-blog.  My expansion into WWII history brought in The Old Man, flatdarkmars, David, Peter the not-so-great and readers too numerous to mention.  Various and sundry anime posts caught the eye of Siergen, Avatar, Ed, Author, Ben, Don, Ubu Roi, Jeff Lawson, and Robert from the Anime Corner Store every now and again... and plenty of other people as well.  GreyDuck and Colleen started dropping by when they found out about the rubber duckies... I think everybody else just tolerates the ducks, otherwise.  Heh.

But the F1 Update! has always been the heart and soul of The Pond, I suppose.  The Official First Overseas Reader, Flotsky, dropped in because of them.  People have said that they didn't give a rat's hindquarters about motorsports at all until they started reading the F1U!s.  And hey, The Pond started because of Formula 1.  But as of late, F1 has also been my bane; it takes a lot of time on race weekend to adequately cover a F1 race: just watching Practice 2, Quals and the race itself is six hours more or less, not to mention the hours it takes to do the writeups for them... and the F1U! itself usually takes as long as any two or three other posts combined, somewhere in the vicinity of three or four hours.

So why do I do all of this?  Surprisingly, the answer is pretty simple, and can be boiled down to one word:

Friends. 

Friends like Pixy, Steven, 'Muppet, The Old Man, flatdarkmars, David, Peter the-not-so-great, Siergen, Avatar, Ed, Author, Ben, Don, Ubu, Jeff, Robert, GreyDuck, Colleen, Flotsky, Mallory, Vauc, and all the other myriad readers of The Pond I haven't named.  You guys make it worthwhile when the jerks come out.  When I don't have the energy to write much.  And you understand when I don't write at all.  And I never would have met any of you if it wasn't for The Pond.

That's why I blog.

Thanks, all you lot.


^{PS - If you weren't named, don't take it personally... there aren't enough pixels in the world for me to thank everybody the way I'd like to - Wonderduck.}

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:05 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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