I’ve been sitting and thinking again; thoughts went from blogging to diaries to Housewife, 49 and finally to Mass Observation.
It occurred to me that one day our blogs might be used as historical documents, like the Mass Observation archive or the Domesday Book. At that point I started wondering just how accurate all these other historical documents are. The Domesday Book, being a tax document, is probably very accurate, though limited. The Mass Observation diaries are probably accurate as far as they go, but represent the views of people who aren’t necessarily representative of the population as a whole – described (by Wikipedia) as “middle-class, educated, literate, and left of centre”.
I’ve never read Housewife, 49 but I have seen the TV adaptation and I’m not convinced by the “left of centre” but I can see that a group of diarists or bloggers could fit that description.
According to a blog I’ve just looked at, bloggers are, in general, ambitious, self-reflective and forever learning. I agree that most bloggers seem to be self-reflective and forever learning, though I’m not sure about ambitious. There are other qualities mentioned, but I’ll let you follow the link if you want to discover more about yourself.
Meanwhile, let’s consider my blog as history.
If anyone tries to reconstruct a picture of the 21st century using my blog as a source, they are going to think that the average UK citizen was more concerned about cheese, brown sauce and words to describe book hoarding than they were about Brexit, global warming and Trumpageddon. (In the UK trump is a slightly archaic word for breaking wind in the UK, and cows emitting methane as a result of the digestive process are said to be responsible for destroying the ozone layer, so those last two items could be the same thing.)
It also explains why, despite the example of Sir Toby Belch, nobody in the UK actually thought he was going to win. Joke names, like bald candidates, tend not to win. That’s why Derrick J Knight is always going to be top dog in the blogosphere, and I, with my shiny head, will always be second.
I wonder if that was why Samual Pepys, a somewhat retro blogger, wore a wig.
However, I digress. I really meant to discuss how representative bloggers are in the scheme of history. It seems to me that we are more interested in health, food and books than the average person. On the other hand, that might be the effect of blogging about those subjects, and following people with similar views.
If I blogged about body modification, manga and mud wrestling I would probably have a completely different view of my fellow bloggers. (Ask your grandchildren if you need any explanations).
So, how representative do you feel?