Blogging

As I read Kristen's post about blogging (below), I could not agree more. Sure, it could be easy to discredit bloggers because they can basically type whatever they want. It goes along with the classic teacher saying of: "Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, because anyone can edit it." AKA, "It's too easy and I want to make you work ridiculously hard for this mediocre assignment." But that's beside the point. The point is, blogs CAN have reliable information. The thing that people don't realize, is this information comes in the form of opinion. Sure, I could easily be an ignorant biased republican, go to a democratic blog, and disregard anything the blog says immediately. (or vice versa, not trying to piss any of you politcal folk off.) Or, I could open my mind up a teeny tiny bit, read the blog, understand that everything is coming from another consumer's side of the story, and take it in for all that it is worth. Blogs open us up to new ideas. For instance, earlier this semester I posted a blog about "radio-rap" vs. "hip-hop." I posted a video to a relatively unknown artist that I feel is more empowering with his music than many artists today. Now, you may read my blog post, listen to the song, completely disagree, and go back to listening to your Lil' Wayne album. That is perfectly acceptable to me. As long as you give it a shot, and decide for yourself that you don't like it, there isn't much I can do about it. Or, maybe you listen to it, think to yourself, "damn, this is some dope shit," and explore the artist and artists related to him. Either way, would you have ever heard that artist if it wasn't for my blog post? Probably not. He's not mainstream enough for the radio, and he isn't really publicized. So, it all comes down to what we can teach each other through blogging. Whether it be political viewpoints, different unexplored styles of music, or our opinions on blogging itself, blogging is something we should use in our everyday lives, to at least branch off from rigid, mainstream news. Church.