Blogging - The New Reality Show in Town

Too much, even of a seemingly good thing, can turn you off on that thing for good.

This is very true of reality TV shows. Sobra na ang dami. Nakakasawa na. Nagiging parang paulit-ulit na and they become boring and quite ordinary. To make them exciting producers spice them up with controversy. I wouldn’t be surprise if a lot of these so called "reality" shows were scripted; with their conclusions and eventual winners manipulated to some or great extent.

If you really think about it, none of these "reality" shows are genuinely real. The contestants know they are being filmed and because of that their actions would have a fair bit of hollywood acting. I'm sure their actions and decisions would have been different if there were no cameras recording their every move.

In order to be genuinely real, the characters must not be aware that he/she is being watched. Not even the slightest suspicion of someone recording their moves. Medyo mahirap ito kung TV show ang pag-uusapan.

But if you switched on to the Blogging world, and go bloghopping you will notice a lot of sites are about people and their day to day activities. A blog of someone talking not only about themselves but also about other people's intimate lives (and without those people being aware of it) -- that for me, is a form of a genuine reality show. Reading about other people's lives can be quite amusing and even absorbing. As social individuals it is quite natural for us to be curious about how others live.

I feel no qualms reading blogs of people talking about themselves and maybe occasionally about people they get into contact with. But when the blogs are mostly about other people and the stories sometimes bordering into the realm of gossip, (whether innocent or not), I feel uneasy and a bit afraid for the writer.

How would you feel if you find out that all your daily activities were being blogged by someone else? Your private secrets and daily affairs shared openly in public? And then you find out people, total strangers even, make judgments of you and make jokes of you. Even if the writer makes every effort to hide the subject’s identity, the subject would still be able to identify him/herself very easily. If you were the subject of the postings what would you feel towards the writer? At what point is it acceptable to write about other people? At what point is it wrong, thoughtless and inconsiderate to do so?

A fellow blogger, Major Tom, in a comment to a previous post said:

Blogging is the purest form of free speech among all media form nowadays.

It struck me that he's right. Then it dawned on me that every freedom or right we enjoy must be balanced with greater responsibility.