Recently, a new genre has been receiving the attention of internet users: the weblog. Using blogs, we can filter out the facts of our offline world and develop a new online external identity. This paper will discuss the nature, use-value, and appeal of this online external identity, discuss the importance of the consistency of the external self-both online and offline, review the relevance of the unverified information in blogs, and talk about how anonymity affects the way we perceive our own identity. Additionally, I hope to shed some light on the blog as an emerging genre and talk about what the blog's worldwide success reveals about human nature and psychology (and vice versa).

 

The Blog

      

Louisa Amsterdam
English 209: Emerging Genres
Truth and the Self in the Writing of Self-Disclosure

Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am the thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn's rain,
When you awaken in the morning's hush                                 Remarkably Human, isn’t it?
I am the swift uplifting rush                                                             By Nelly Khaselev