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I'm not talking about what bloggers are wearing when they sit down at their computers or blogging about states of undress, but rather a blogger's willingness to peel back their onion and reveal layers of their lives. We've been talking about naked blogging at BlogHer since the very first conference yet I remain fascinated. Recently I wrote about hitting bottom and I admired how many bloggers were willing to share their stories. And I wondered, how do bloggers decide how naked they are willing to get?
Why do many of us strip naked in public and become blog exhibitionists? Why do we not just engage in the time honored tradition of confessing all to our diaries and journals? I suspect it's because we long for the potential for support, sympathy, empathy and even the opportunity to help others know that they are not alone. The desire to know that we are not alone can trump the potential for judgment, criticism and efforts to shame that can come with opening ourselves up like books. There are times when I am pushing my Sisyphean boulder that I long to blurt out everything on a blog. But I generally hold back because I think twice about how much I want my down days to live on the internet forever, there to define me.
Perhaps it is because we long to be authentic. Because it's often harder work to hide and be less than fully transparent. And once you've been seduced by the blogging drug, the narcotic of connection and immediacy, it can become difficult to keep any part of yourself away from it.
Naked blogging is not always a positive experience, though. Some bloggers have learned the hard way and end up wishing they could use a magic eraser on the wayback machine. They end up returning to spaces like Live Journal where it is easier to restrict access to your confessions or password protecting their writing, and some even pull down their blogs all together. Also, there's the problem that your truth is inevitably tangled up with the lives of others. Others, whose lives are not yours to narrate or share. Plus, the little voices in our heads can often remind us, wisely, that having boundaries can be a very good thing.
But back to the good stuff. For all the legitimate concerns about stripping down and getting naked, there are many examples where bloggers have received much needed support from their community to help them move through the valleys and find their way back towards the mountain tops. And readers seem to appreciate it so very much, as well. I marvel at the frequent posts I see from business or other non-personal-life bloggers who find that when they share what's going on in their life - the good, the bad, the ugly - how much it resonates with readers, how appreciated the act of stripping down in their blogs can be and how, rather than marking them as an undesirable loser, reveals the business person to be human -- just like us. The act transforms them and makes the blogger more interesting to read and, surprisingly, more likely to be hired because people want to work with people they know and with whom they feel connected.
Have you had a naked blogging experience? Is it something you would do again? How did you decide how much to strip off before hitting publish? Have you ever read a naked blog post that caused you to think differently about the blogger? I'm still learning and debating so I'd love to hear what you think in the comments.
Related Reading:
Victoria Brouhard: Creating Your Entrepreneurial Life: Oof
This is one of those posts that is terrifying to publish. Feels a bit whiny, and maybe a tad defensive (which just goes to show that I’m still resisting some of my emotions).
But it would feel dishonest to go back to writing as though everything is fine. I’ve been transparent, so far, about this whole transition from not knowing what I want, to owning my desire to be a coach, to launching my practice, to quitting my job.
Jonathan Fields: Awake At The Wheel: Strip Blogging: how naked will you go?
Did you ever write a deeply personal letter, one that revealed your insecurities, your desires, your triumphs and paper-thin humanity? Knowing the whole time you’d never send it, but wondering what might happen if, one day, you just let that
