Whenever a new internet trend catches on in the US, someone in China will produce a copy. Even though Twitter is censured in China, two (or maybe even more) of the internet portals in China have launched their own versions of Twitter and they are gaining popularity. At the encouragement of one of my friends, I opened up a micro-blog (that’s what a tweet is called, literally in Chinese) account and alas, I’ve gained all of 13 followers so far, which is probably more than the number of friends I actually have in China. Blogging had gained popularity in China in the last decade, but micro-blogs have caught on like wildfire. To blog you have to like writing, and a lot of people see writing as a chore, but tweeting is fun! You don’t have to think too hard about it and others don’t have to work too hard to read through them.
Even though some of my friends (the ones younger than me) are addicted to twittering, I see it as a waste of time for the most part. So many people write so many things, most of which are not well-thought out, and in the end a lot of internet junk is created. To be fair though, most people here have more friends and connections than I do, so it’s an effective way for them to instantly connect and share things with their fans, and maybe that’s why Twitter has been so popular both abroad and in China.
The real reason for this entry, however, is that I often wonder about the value of me adding to the already ginormous amount of internet junk. If I tweet, all thirteen of my followers, some of whom are complete strangers, may not may not read it. My blog has even fewer readership; my Chinese blog has all but one follower, and I don’t even know when is the next time I can access blogspot. But writing is fun! But then today I read somewhere that to make your blog popular you have to write for the readers, not for yourself. That puts me at a dichotomy. In the future and maybe even in the present, the readership of my blog consists of one person—me, and if I need to write for the reader, which is again, me, then I should write for me. But if that really were the case, I’m better off keeping a journal, because blogging means that I have to be mindful of what I should and should not share with a stranger who might stumble across my blog, and I’d have to omit many interesting but intimate details in my writing.
In the end, there is just so much stuff out there on the internet nowadays. There is barely any time to read through enough to catch up with the rest of the world, much less to write about stuff that matters to no one but myself. This is why I’ve been neglecting my blog.
