5 Reasons blogging about your offline life can be bad
There is a stereotype that personal blogs can only talk about personal life stories. On the contrary, personal blogs can and do talk about almost anything including business, politics, relationships, blogging, etc. Similarly, many non-personal blogs can talk about one’s offline life stories. In this article, I am talking specifically about sharing personal offline life stories in the online world, like on blog posts or any website.
If you write something about your offline life or come across a writing talking about someone in the offline world, chances are there can be a couple of reasons why many people would consider such writing to be bad. To see how sharing your offline life online can be done both in a relaxed and mature fashion, following are 5 reasons why talking about the offline life can be bad in the online world if you are not careful.
5 Reasons Writing About Offline Events Can Cause Trouble Online
- The offline contacts you talk about may find out your site, causing relationship issues.
- You may alienate online people because of the way you treat offline people through your offline stories.
- Offline businesses may not give you their business, in the form of a contract or employment, if they see you talking about offline businesses.
- Online, things can be taken out of context, and thus appear to be completely different what they really are in the offline world.
- Your online privacy will be reduced. More online people will know about your personal life, creating more ways for stalkers and similar people to intrude on your life if they want to.
Do you blog about or like reading blogs about personal life stories from the offline world?
What is your opinion on this? Do you currently talk about offline people and events in your online blog? Do you like reading people’s offline stories on online websites? Do you think it is a good thing to express the personal things from the offline world online, or do you prefer keeping things in their own offline/online realm?
Thank you for reading. 
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( July 18th, 2007 at 8:37 am )
Had a friend his wife posted some very personal embarrassing things on her blog about there relationship it ended there marriage.
People think a blog can be used as a diary, mmm ain’t diaries supposed to be private the opposite to a blog?
( July 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm )
Vic, thank you for the comment, and thanks for visiting also. You give a really scary example of how posting things online can backfire in some cases.
Yes, diaries are supposed to be private, opposite to many typical blogs of today unless a blogger takes extra measures to protect their domain from anyone they do not want to come across their blogs. Still, it can be really hard, since a simply robots.txt file does not do the complete trick or keeping all search engines and crawling bots at bay.
Also, people link to other sites all the times, so sometimes a person may find a link to someone’s name and say “Hey, this name sounds familiar” and bam! They come across a blog that is supposed to be hidden from them. All it can take is to search for sites and keywords similar to their own life and similar to the blog that wants to stay hidden, and then find associated and linked content to the blog in question. Is it hard? Yes. Is it impossible? No.
What is your opinion about password protected blogs that want to act as private diaries?
( July 19th, 2007 at 2:09 am )
I admit I blog about people in my real life too, I suppose my excuse is I try to be as rational and un-blaming and criticising as I can. Well, unless they really did do something that wasn’t the fairest or nicest, but I still try and put things in perspectives cause I know it’s not always “I’m the victim” situation.
I have seen some blogs that are written really well, with replacement names such as “Nice Guy” or something for example, and that same name is always used for that person. All the private stuff is replaced, such as [my profession] or something. Though some of the content is criticising and a little bit mean, the blog itself is in a light hearted manner… though, I don’t know, it’d feel bad to find that blog and realise it was you, even if the names and important details are replaced.
I’m seriously reconsidering my own blog lately because of this exact reason… part of me wants to blog, such as a diary… but I while things I want to hear others thoughts (well, hmm.. I don’t need to… I would just like to), I don’t want to be revealing private stuff.
I think its becoming harder to find a balance between the online world, and the offline world. So much offline-world business - business’s, work, social network etc, is moving into the online world… you have to be careful what you do or say or the worlds might clash.
( July 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm )
Jess, thanks for the comment. Of course, writing about personal things does not mean to change the facts, distort the view and always give others benefit of the doubt while taking away all the fairness entitled to yourself when the facts side with your side of the story, at least in your view. So according to your comment, you’re the victim, right? J/k.
Hmmm, I really like that approach: “Nice Guy” instead of the real name, with that name always being used. Valerie does that, and so does Ally. Valerie usually uses different letters consistently when talking about different people, and Ally has both letters and words like “Quite Nosey But Nice Neighbour” to talk about different things and people.
I like your writing style, and the way you talk about things. It’s unique, and specific to you. So basically, you want to talk about things but also not reveal private stuff all the time, or some times?
Yes, it can become very hard to find a balance between the online and the offline worlds. Replacing names with fake names may help, and so can password protected entries. But I prefer replacing names and other things like profession, not sure why. Maybe because I have not yet seen many great examples of how password protected entries can maintain the amount of interest a reader, or me, may have in a piece of writing compared to non-passworded entries.
( July 31st, 2007 at 6:30 pm )
It makes it much easier to explain something when you can use your own experiences for examples.
( August 7th, 2007 at 2:08 am )
Organic foods & energy, thanks for the comment.
I am not sure if I understood you comment completely. Do you mean I should use more personal examples than the ones I listed for each point?
Also, do you think it can be possible to associate some name to your comment? I think there is someone else using the words “Organic food” to post comments too, and it may cause some confusion to simply associate you with those keywords.