Reflection

While reading the article “Imagining the Blogosphere” by Graham Lampa I kept in mind that I actively run a blog. I don’t place myself in the majority of people that use blogs for diary keeping, or for updating my friends about my life and I am not the minority that uses my blog for journalism or activism. I think of my blog on Tumblr, yes that website, as an escape from my uneventful life and the depressing state of our world. I only share about things that make me excited and happy. But I follow a lot of blogs that do talk about social issues and have discussions. It got me thinking…how much impact does this work have? How much changes come from sharing around facts about problems like Islamophobia, police brutality, racism, etc. on a blog? I feel as if it’s not achieving anything. So, I was super surprised when Lampa referenced Scott in the article, “When Lott eventually resigned his post as Senate Minority Leader, bloggers were given credit for keeping the story alive when the traditional media had let it slip through the cracks” (Lampa, 2). We also discussed in class that bloggers keep issues current, viral and uncensored from rating profits. I just never thought that blogging had that big of an influence or that it was taken seriously.

On the flip side, I also believe that some journalist blogging can be harmful. (Just like big name news can be harmful, and especially our current government.) It’s become a thing where if you don’t share the same perspective on a topic you easily become the enemy. I’ve seen terrible things said against people (who haven’t done anything hurtful to anyone) just because they are white, male, Christian or straight. It’s not equality. It’s not what we want in return. I am not dismissing that there are actual crappy people in this world that deserve to be exposed and stopped. Terrible people who threaten death on trans, gays or immigrants, or people who are actual rapists, racists or Nazis. I just think that above all we really need to be aware of the news blogs that we follow because we might start to be completely blinded by everything they say. Some activists might turn out to be just as bad. It’s our nature to use labels and categorize people. But we have the power to not turn around and repeat the same harmful categorizing that crappy people do to others. Not everyone was lucky enough to be like me, full of curiosity and appreciation for the world. It would really help if instead of fighting each other, we all went out and made friends, went out and made an effort to understand things that are new to us. It was a bit embarrassing at first (since I suck at socializing) but I chose to go out of my way to make friends with the international students at my high school. I went multiple times to girls Halaqa (basically Sunday school but it was on Wednesday) at the local Masjid to experience Islam and the Muslim community. Anyway, keep blogging and talking about these problems, because yes they do exist, but know that not everyone is against you and that not everyone is a jerk, that goes for both sides of anything. Just because I am bisexual but that doesn’t make me flawless. Just because I am white and a female doesn’t mean that I want all POC or males to cease existing. Just because I love Germany doesn’t make me a Nazi or agree with any policy that the AfD has. Just because I had a bad father doesn’t mean all men are like him.