The World is our Voyeur

We're all just voyeurs at heart. We seem to love to read about other people's lives. There are seemingly millions of "mom blogs" out there that update us on every tiny shriek their children make as well as flood the blogosphere with an obscene amount of giveaways for all this mom/child related stuff (which admittedly some of those things are VERY cool and I'm not even a parent). But yet...we read it. I got hooked on several blogs like this and I can't even relate, but I loved watching their lives pan out. I personally don't watch reality TV, but America in general has embraced all forms of voyeurism: reality television, blogs, memoir, they're all the hottest, sexiest things to come around the past 10 or so years. Really puts the whole deal with Mrs. Kravits into perspective.

However similar in terms of voyeuristic recreation, blogs seem to be a breed separate from the memoirs though, they seem to be more raw. There are not hours of agonizing editing and fighting with one sentence--one word: "is it better this way? Or this? No, the other way...no wait!" before sending it off to be published. Publishing is at the world's manic fingertips and many of us are taking advantage of it.

We do have creative nonfiction/memoirs where we get our kicks watching Augusten Burroughs' mother have another breakdown, or Sarah Thyre's mother who sips martinis with her friends during her prayer group, but it's different from blogs. Creative non-fiction has been edited, it is unadulterated hyperbole for effect, it is a story crafted over and over to entertain whereas blogs are more often than not, quickly written and whatever creative genius gets tossed in, great. Because I don't know about you but I'm not going to spend an entire day editing a blog post to squeeze as much wit out as I can for the sake of entertainment. What you see is what you get, right?

Blogs being more raw also means that blogs are often posted in "real time" so people can follow from day to day, live the suspense, watch real, live soap operas while also getting recommendations for exterminators from their local blogger friends. It's instant gratification plus one exterminator.

Meanwhile, I have anticipated David Sedaris' new book for well over a year AND I have cockroaches the size of hubcaps colonizing in my bathroom.