mediajunk

Emily Nussbaum has written a lengthy, insightful article about the phenomenon of teenage blogging -- one of the largest sectors of the blogosphere. I was surprised to learn, among other things, that blogging is not confined to geeks, and that cliquishness exists within the teenage blogging community: "Blogging is a replication of real life: each pool of blogs is its own ecosystem, with only occasional links to other worlds. As I surfed from site to site, it became apparent that as much as journals can break stereotypes, some patterns are crushingly predictable: the cheerleaders post screen grabs of the Fox TV show ''The O.C.''; kids who identify with ''ghetto'' culture use hip-hop slang; the geeks gush over Japanese anime. And while there are exceptions, many journal writers exhibit a surprising lack of curiosity about the journals of true strangers. They're too busy writing posts to browse." If anybody thinks that weblogging is a fad (some people still think the *internet* is a fad!), just wait until this generation of high-school bloggers reaches the workplace. Given the way these kids wholeheartedly embrace the medium, blogging -- and the web -- are sure to grow in new and exciting ways.