Does having a personal bio website make you vain?

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I can understand the need for one for employment purposes, to serve as a CV /resume. Plus websites that are developed to highlight a hobby or passion one has.



But I find it rather vain to have a site that is simply an outline of one's life story. And in most cases, it's not a particularly exciting life. Do we care how many cats and dogs you have? Who do you send your link to? Strangers on the web? Surely your friends already know who you are without the need of a website.



Perhaps, vain is not the right word...but what is the motivation behind this?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    Quote:

    Originally posted by satchmo

    I can understand the need for one for employment purposes, to serve as a CV /resume. Plus websites that are developed to highlight a hobby or passion one has.



    But I find it rather vain to have a site that is simply an outline of one's life story. And in most cases, it's not a particularly exciting life. Do we care how many cats and dogs you have? Who do you send your link to? Strangers on the web? Surely your friends already know who you are without the need of a website.



    Perhaps, vain is not the right word...but what is the motivation behind this?




    I'd say that the height of vanity are the multitudes of personal blogs on Live Journal, Blogspot, etc.



    Pages upon pages of the thoughts of Emo kids, written for other Emo kids ... the trials and tribulations of trying to pick up depressed members of the opposite sex, finding a new lock for their bike, complaining that the new Songs:Ohia cd isn't as depressing as the previous one, links to out-of-focus pictures that they've taken, stories of going to see some new band that has a bass player that they think is cute ... and on and on it goes.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    a10t2a10t2 Posts: 191member
    WRT blogs, I think you're missing the point. It seems to me that by making public the kinds of things that were historically written in a private journal, you're saying that they aren't really important - to a stranger they're indistinguishable from the problems of someone else your age. There's comfort in reading that.



    Plus anything that improves someone's writing skills is a good thing in my book.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by audiopollution

    I'd say that the height of vanity are the multitudes of personal blogs on Live Journal, Blogspot, etc.



    Pages upon pages of the thoughts of Emo kids, written for other Emo kids ... the trials and tribulations of trying to pick up depressed members of the opposite sex, finding a new lock for their bike, complaining that the new Songs:Ohia cd isn't as depressing as the previous one, links to out-of-focus pictures that they've taken, stories of going to see some new band that has a bass player that they think is cute ... and on and on it goes.




    You are reading reading all the wrong blogs, apparently.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    I despise the blog format for anything other than product development such as Hyatt's Safari blog.



    I just don't like the calendar-focused, time-based presentation. I don't like the impermanence (at a minute by minute scale anyway). I'd rather a weekly or monthly "issue" that someone actually worked on integrating into a cohesive whole rather than pumping text into a field every few hours and having it all be flatly presented in a rigid blog CSS layout (no matter how fanciful) constantly rotating the old stuff to the bottom.



    I think there's so much pressure to get something up there every day or every few hours that the quality of content becomes arbitrary, often a regurgitation of the same tired (immediately) news and links that like-minded bloggers put up, with a sarcastic quirky spin put on it to make it your own.



    Certainly easy for the author but rather bland to the reader.



    I mean, a blog is immediately recognizable as "only" a blog but a website always seemed to have more personality and diversity.



    I hate blogs. Tried to like them. Can't. Won't.



    Bio websites are a bit more interesting although it certainly is up to the creator to keep it interesting.



    I don't think they necessarily make you vain. If anything they might be a great way for otherwise shy people to communicate their interests or view to other people, that they normally would not be able to find. Same with blogs except blogs have this time and freshness pressure, to update or be seen as boring, something that a personal website does not necessarily have.



    Often once a month or even every 6 months is fine for a personal site but that would be unacceptable for a blog. (People would email you asking if you died or something).



    I guess the thing about most blogs is that the pressure to keep it fresh keeps you from crafting a nicely written piece and instead, you spit out something as soon as you think of it, using the same voice that you would use over the phone.



    Oh well, they are here to stay, that's for sure.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    talksense101talksense101 Posts: 1,738member
    Having an autobiography on the internet is not any different than writing a book about it.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    dogcowdogcow Posts: 713member
    I admit, I've kept a personal blog on and off for a couple years. It's not for anyone besides me and my friends. I post short stories of things I did that day/week and some pictures. It's fun for me and my friends to go back and read about what we did and might have forgot about even if it is meaningless to everyone else.



    IMO, personal blogs/journals are only for the people writing them and their friends. Yes, they are public for anyone to read, but I don't know anyone who would go around looking for a personal blog of someone they didn't know to read.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    some people think of blogs as a way to talking with God, kind of like sharing your daily life with him.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    escherescher Posts: 1,811member
    In college in the mid-1990s, a friend of mine described personal websites in general as "mental masturbation". I think this still holds true in most cases today, whether it's for a special interest website, personal bio, or a blog. But that's OK. There's nothing wrong with masturbating to make yourself feel better.



    Escher
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