“What made you decide to start a blog?”
As I recruit more friends to join me at this blog (we will soon have Emma, Marian, and Margaret joining as authors!), they often ask me this question. If the blog does well in the future, people may ask me this question again. I do have an answer, and it’s telling of the kind of person I am, so I’ll record it here.
Why now?
I found this wonderful professor and dean, Tara Brabazon, who makes vlogs for academics (primarily graduate students) where she talks about various topics about academia. She used to be a professor of journalism, so she had a vlog on academic journalism. I watched it, and decided to open the blog.
I must say that I didn’t really realize why this vlog inspired me to open the blog until I tried to recruit a friend to join me. He is very concerned about online bullying. I said I was, too, and that this concern was one of the main reasons why I’ve waited so long. I showed him the vlog. He watched it. Then he asked me: “why was that what made you decide to do it?”
So I watched it again. (Here’s the vlog, you can skip to 15 minutes if you don’t need an introduction to journalism.)
At a little over 15-minute, she says:
… but if you write online journalism, there will be trolls and there will be people who abuse you. And for the women who are watching this blog… you will be abused for … anything you can possibly imagine. You will confront abuse. So you have make sure that you are tough, that you are resilient, that you are ready to take and confront abuse. And if you are not, then really, do not go into online journalism.
Tara Brabazon
She also tells a wonderful story at the end of the vlog, but it wasn’t the wonderful story that made me decide. It was this horrible part. It was her warning that if you are not … do not go into online journalism.
I do not want to be the kind of person who cannot do online journalism.
So, I thought, what am I waiting for? Waiting is not going to make this easier. Waiting is not going to make people less likely to abuse women online. If I’m going to do this at all, I might as well do it now.
Why at all?
… because I need to speak louder.
I am not an especially mentally strong person. I am rather fortunate that 1) I have a fairly supportive social network around me, and 2) I am, by nature, not a very sensitive person. This has allowed me to do things that others might not have been able to.
One important realization I’ve had when I “do things” is that the extent to which an initiative is successful or traumatic strongly depends on how loud you are.
People who have voices have power. This blog is my way of developing my voice, so that when bad things happen one day, people can hear me.
That said, I do hope that most of my voice, most of this blog, will be positive, light, and entertaining.
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