On a lazy sunday afternoon, that is today, I met this blog after a long time. Flipping through my old posts in this one and the alzeonz blog, I can't help but feel how naive I have been, in writing a humour blog or in replying to comments. To give a perspective, I started blogging in 2008. Every couple of years, when I read something sarcastic or funny that I wrote a long time back, I noticed that my humour is quite stale. This is quite contradictory because when I write something that is supposed to be funny, my mind goes through these following flow-chart process. First whether the statement is funny and does it make me laugh. Then I visualize whether it would make the person reading it laugh. After making sure that the statement would go through all these quality controls, only then I write it down. 

I am a stickler in making sure that all my online interactions have to sound cool. That is whether, it is a tweet or email or a comment, it has to be cool. Maybe this behaviour is because I am so uncool in real life. And why is that, every couple of years, when I read back my "cool" writing, it turns out to bbe incredibly meh. Makes me squirm. All my witty repartee has sort of a convent-1960's british style to it. 

Why isn't humor timeless? Why is it that some writing that is funny at the moment, always "mehhhhh" later. It's not the case with tragedy posts or fantasy posts. Tragedy posts can always make you sad. Okay now my mind voice is saying to me, dei ennada solla varae.

So anyway I am going to say this to myself retroactively."Vivek, This post is going to be so lame in a couple of years when you read it again." So DEAL WITH IT.

Digression: I miss personal blogging a lot. All this social network has totally destroyed it. I was hoping Tumblr would make personal blogging cool again but that has fizzled out too. Quora seems to be making blogging popular again but I don't think you can write stupid, arbit posts like this one on Quora.   They would be downvoted to oblivion or not voted at all(equally bad to your ego). Same reason why facebook notes is not popular, for personal blogging. This voting reward mechanism for blogging platforms, especially a personal blogging platform, would never work. Personal blogging is like having a conversation. People have personal blogs because they want to record something or because they want to talk about something which are seemingly insignificant to be talked in person. Imagine if conversations also have a reward mechanism.

       Person A: ( says something  )

       Person B: I like what you said. 

       Person A: (says something )

     Person B: That's a stupid ass statement. I am downvoting you. 

If this is the way all conversations are going to be, conversations will die too. Anyway why did personal blogging die? Why has it not been able to re-invent itself? Lack of time in this modern fast paced world? Somehow I can never attribute this reason to the decline in personal blogging. Personal blogs were once a rage, there were tight knit communities around them. But now, why is that everyone has been satisfied with 140 character limit to their thoughts. Why are people wasting their time watching how other's live without wanting to record their own? Personal blogs traffic has dwindled but FB/Twitter show no signs of slowing down. Why is that? Doesn't all products on internet have cyclical usage patterns. 

Of course, I am not making the assessment of decline in personal blogging objectively. I know the objective reasons of it's death. It's a philosophical assessment. My belief is that blogging in general could have impacted societies in a way better than social networks. Blogging requires patience and seeks clarity. For instance, let's contrast the impact of blogs and short form social media in Indian politics. Thanks to social media, right now there are two factions, Modi baiters and Rahul Gandi bashers. Both factions are not mutually exclusive. The common factor between these two factions are they are horribly mis-informed. All they know are interesting "tidbits" about their respective protagonists, and not enough knowledge to make an informed opinion. These "tidbits" are being fed through FB/Twitter. Now let's assume these were not present and blogs were the only type of social media. Since trolling on blogs are much harder, in sum totality, blogs might present a balanced perspective instead of skewed ones delivered by the short form FB/Twitter. This short form of communication are making people incredibly intolerant. Another case are those Tamil Nadu protests against Sri Lanka. They are to a large extent, undoubtedly exacerbated through this short form social media. A majority of these naive population probably have an idea implanted in their heads that "okay all tamilians are getting killed over there.". Not many would know the complex history of LTTE-Sinhala. 

But to play the devil's advocate, would outrage against governments like in case of Delhi gang rape, have happened if short form social media were not present?

/end of rant

P.S Wanted to put a small nostalgic note on my blog and ended up ranting against social networks. Of late, this is how my mind has been working. It is a swathe of thoughts. Peel one, there's another fresh set of thoughts underneath. Shite! Few years back, I had a clear mind. But of late, I can witness my mind turning to a beehive. Now I can understand why mediation is famous and Deepak Chopra is infamous. He who has a clear horizon, is the happiest and I want it.