Niemand kan vir my sê wat 'n 'blog' is nie / No-one can tell me what a blog is

(Scroll down for English)

KORT-KORT vra iemand van die ouer geslag, of iemand wat (soos ek) tegnologies gestremd is, my wat 'n "blog" eintlik is. Ek weet wragtig nie.

Danksy onder meer Christo Viljoen se nuwe Kuberwoordeboek / Cyber Dictionary - Afrikaans-Engels / English-Afrikaans (Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria, 2007) weet ek dat dit in Afrikaans 'n webjoernaal (voortaan WB) heet. Is dit dus maar net 'n joernaal, 'n dagboek, wat aanlyn gehou word? Dit sal dit opsigself iets nuuts beteken: persoonlike ontboesemings wat intyds deur enige Jan Rap en sy maat gelees kan word, eerder as dat dit ná die skrywer se dood, en moontlik eers ná 'n langdurige hoftwis met dié se oorblywende naasbestaandes, in boekvorm gepubliseer word.

Tog is daar soveel hype oor die verskynsel van WB's dat 'n mens voel dit moet méér as dit behels. Het dit dalk daarmee te doen dat die ontboesemings in dié joernale dikwels selfs meer persoonlik, en ander kere juis weer meer onpersoonlik, as in die tradisionele dagboek is?

'n Uiterste voorbeeld van die hiperpersoonlike is 'n webjoernaal getitel All about my Vagina (by http://myvag.net), waarin die skrywer jou werklik al vir jare oor niks anders praat nie.

Die skrywer en letterkundige Etienne van Heerden, redakteur van die literêre webtydskrif LitNet (by www.litnet.co.za), het al dikwels in sy insigryke besprekings van die internet as kommunikasieruimte gewys op hoe die anonimiteit wat deur dié medium moontlik word, mense se inhibisies en skroom wegneem sodat hulle veel meer vry-uit praat - iets wat ook gevare inhou.

Daarteenoor kry jy weer iets soos Noam Chomsky se webjoernaal by http://blog.zmag.org/ttt, waarin oor gewigtige politieke, ekonomiese en sosiale kwessies gesels word.

Maar die webjoernaal as genre ondermyn allerlei binêre opposisies. Neem bogenoemde twee WB's as voorbeeld. Die anonieme dame wat so vrypostig oor haar privaatdele is, verskaf ook perspektiewe op, en inligting oor, "publieke" kwessies soos geslagsrolle, seksuele moraliteit en geboortebeperking. Sy kondig selfs 'n keer aan dat sy eersdaags op 'n openbare kongres as spreker gaan optree. Haar WB het dus ook 'n onpersoonlike, maatskaplike dimensie. Of illustreer dit dalk daardie ou feministiese cliché "Die persoonlike ís die politieke"?

En is die andersheid van 'n WB soos Chomsky s'n, in vergelyking met meer tradisionele intellektuele literatuur, nie juis die hoogs persoonlike aard daarvan nie? Word die naam, die gesig, die persoonlike aanslag, hier nie belangriker as ooit tevore in dié soort diskoerse nie? Is dit dalk problematies omdat die selebriteit belangriker as die idees word? Of word intellektuele debat daardeur eerliker om die beliggaamdheid daarvan nou meer sigbaar word? Maar hoe eg is daardie geprojekteerde, openbare liggaam?

In dieselfde enkele WB kan jy dus tegelyk die persoonlike en onpersoonlike aantref, op allerlei verwikkelde en boeiende maniere met mekaar vermeng en steunend op mekaar.

Nog 'n aspek wat WB's anders as tradisionele dagboeke maak, is die interaktiewe aard daarvan: die feit dat wat ek nou hier kwytraak, reaksie van iemand anders kan uitlok - en dat ek my dan moontlik genoop kan voel om op my beurt dáárop te reageer. Dit vind ek nogal aantreklik, want soos die Duits-Nederlandse filosoof Heinz Kimmerle (sy fassinerende webwerf is by www.kimmerle.nl), voel ek dat die waarheid hom meestal in die gesprek openbaar, eerder as in enige van die afsonderlike stellings waaruit so 'n gesprek opgebou is.

Soms kry ek die indruk die WB's eintlik maar 'n byderwetse manier is om met penvriende te kommunikeer. Wie onthou nog penvriende? Ek behoort tot 'n geslag wat nog daarmee grootgeword het - ek kan goed onthou dat van my broers en susters via een of ander jeugorganisasie penvriendskappe opgebou het met kinders van dieselfde ouderdom uit allerlei eksotiese lande. Is dit maar eintlik wat hier aangaan, ten minste wat sommige WB's betref?

Of is dit dalk juis die ondefinieerbaarheid, die (voorlopige?) oopheid en tergende moontlikhede van die WB as literatuursoort, sy geheimsinnigheid, wat dit so interessant maak?

Die enigste manier om uit te vind wat 'n WB werklik is, en of die hype daaroor geregverdig is, is seker maar om in die praktyk in te duik en dit self van binne af te ervaar. Vandaar dan hierdie webjoernaal.

- Gerrit

English translation:

EVERY now and then someone of the older generation, or someone who (like me) is technologically handicapped, asks me just what a blog is. I sure as hell don't know.

Thanks to, inter alia, Christo Viljoen's Kuberwoordeboek / Cyber Dictionary - Afrikaans/Engels English/Afrikaans (Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria, 2007) I know that, in Afrikaans, it is called a webjoernaal. Is it, then, merely a journal, a diary, kept online? That would in itself represent a novelty: personal confessions that can be read, in real time, by every Tom, Dick and Harry, rather than getting published in book form only subsequent to the author's death, and possibly after a long court battle with her or his remaining relatives?

However, there is so much hype about the blog phenomenon that one feels there must be more to it. Does it perhaps have something to do with the fact that the confessions in these journals are often even more personal, yet at other times much more impersonal, than in the traditional diary?

An extreme example of the hyperpersonal is a blog entitled All about my Vagina (at http://myvag.net) in which the author has, I kid you not, been talking about nothing else for several years.

The author and literary scholar Etienne van Heerden, editor of the literary online magazine LitNet (at www.litnet.co.za), has often pointed out, in his insightful discussions of the internet as communication space, how the anonimity afforded by this medium can remove people's inhibitions and scruples so that they speak much more freely - something that also holds dangers.

By contrast, there is something like Noam Chomsky's blog at http://blog.zmag.org/ttt, in which weighty political, economic and social issues as discussed.

Yet the blog as genre undermines all kinds of binary oppositions. Take the two blogs mentioned above as an example. The anonymous lady who is so outspoken about her private parts, also offers perspectives on, and information about, "public" issues like gender roles, sexual morality and birth control. She even announces that she will soon be speaking at a public conference. Her blog thus also has an impersonal, social dimension. Or does it perhaps illustrate that old feminist cliché "The personal is the political"?

And is the novelty in a blog like Chomsky's, compared to more traditional intellectual literature, not constituted precisely by its highly personal nature? Has the name, the face, the personal touch not become more important here than ever before in discourses of this kind? is this perhaps problematic because the celebrity becomes more important than the ideas? Or does intellectual debate thereby become more honest thanks to its embodiment now being rendered more visible? But how real is that projected, public body?

In one and the same blog you can, thus, simultaneously encounter the personal and the impersonal, mixed up with, and dependent on, one another in all sorts of complex and fascinating ways.

Another aspect that makes blogs different from traditional diaries, is its interactive nature: the fact that waht I have to say here may evoke reaction from someone else - and that I may then possibly feel obliged, in turn, to react to that. I find this quite attractive, for I agree with the German-Dutch philosopher Heinz Kimmerle (his fascinating website is at www.kimmerle.nl) that the truth usually reveals itself in the conversation rather than in any of the separate statements constituting such a conversation.

Sometimes I have the impression that blogs are simply an up-to-date means of communicating with pen friends. Who can still remember pen friends? I belong to a generation who still grew up with them - I can still recall how some of my brothers and sisters became friends, via some youth organisation, with children of their own age from excotic countries all over the world. Is that essentially what we're dealing with here too, at least as far as some blogs are concerned?

Or is it perhaps the undefinability, the (provisional?) openness and seductive possibilities of the blog as genre, its mysteriousness, that makes it so interesting?

The only way to find out what a blog really is, and whether the hype about it is justified, is, I guess, to dive into the practice itself and experience it from the inside for oneself. Hence this blog.

- Gerrit