Life For Sale

Blogging and the Internet: Commodifying One’s Life?

And we thought we already heard it all. Day by day, we hear stories of people, that which before, we could never even conceive of, each story more appalling than the next.

I heard these types of stories from the Internet, from which I was amazed. I read of one Australian man, who, post divorce, offered to sell his life, including his friends, so he could start anew. There was also another who made himself an object of a virtual game, wherein he put out a live video of himself on a site so people could view him real-time, and people can just log on his website and start shooting him. He claims it is part of his study of finding out how trigger-happy people nowadays are. He got more than a million hits in his site, maybe there is something in his theory, after all.

When we find out about stories such as those, we shake our heads and tsk-tsked among ourselves on the ludicrousness of their ‘antics’. Life does not seem to hold so much value these days, to sell is more important, so it seems.

We scoff and gasp in those stories, but do not even bat an eyelash when it comes to bloggers putting out intimate details of their lives in the internet. It is the same with the situations above, is it not? In a way you are selling yourself, your life, albeit in a less direct way. Why would anyone do so?, you wonder. There is so much importance in privacy and ensuring that, but there are those who blab their sins in public, for all the web community to read about and devour.

A friend told me that the Internet has provided a lot of opportunities to make money. Blogging can be a huge money-making venture, you just have to play it right. You just need to set up a blog (there are a lot of websites offering free web space if you are just starting up, she recommended www.wordpress.com as a host for that), a pay pal account, adsense account in Google for advertisements and just write to your heart’s content. Use a simple yet attractive design in your blog, preferably with a large font so people do not complain, oh and leave the convoluted, artsy fartsy language that you love to use. The simpler and more direct style of writing that you employ, the better. Furthermore, make it interesting, create an ‘identity’ for yourself, people like to read about those who have eventful lives, don’t you agree? Now how do you make money in that? Well, she said, you earn money based on the traffic you get on your site. Such is the rationale of the importance of making your stories and articles readable and enjoyable.

I looked at the more popular bloggers’ sites for inspiration and to obtain a clearer understanding on what my friend was pertaining to. I saw them posting pictures of themselves and their friends, and gushing/complaining about their oh-so-exciting lives. There are some who devoted their site in providing informative articles in their respective industries, but most of the blogs I have found (that are among the most popular) are the gossipy type of blogs, online versions of reality TV shows that have become such a hit such as MTV’s Laguna Beach or Big Brother. And then, these sites are laden with advertisements with all their logos neatly arranged out front as you enter their homepages.

And these sites make money, lots of it. And what was the object of sale? Mainly, their lives. Writing talent and computer design are tools in doing so, but the main thing being sold was the identity of the blogger.

There is something a bit sordid about this idea, being the private person that I am. But then there is no law specifically prohibiting you to “sell your life”. On top of that, recent studies have shown that the Internet has garnered more following as an entertainment source than other types of media such as the television and the radio, especially among the youth. More kids are logging on the Internet due to proliferation of networking sites such as Friendster and Myspace, (now I think it is Facebook that is becoming popular). Blogs are also included as being a pastime for these youth.

And what do these blogs contain? Basically, almost everything you can imagine, since there are no regulatory measures as stringent as employed in the television media and the radio. And these are all available to whoever has Internet access, in a scary free-for all fashion.

Yes, business is business. Industry is encouraged, blogging is profitable and the blogger is free to be creative in ensuring that not only his or her ideas get disseminated to facilitate a fruitful exchange in information and be compensated for that. But then, as per any freedom, there must also be limitations. Though there is no specific study directly relating blogging to the changes in the lifestyles and attitudes of their readers, especially the youth being the main audience, one cannot dispute their influence to that sector of the society.

“ No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech…” ( Art III, Sec 4, Philippine Constitution) This is correlative to the value that man put on the free trade of ideas for the realization of the common good. But then, in blogging, yes, some people write articles to provide for a healthy exchange of knowledge and information to provide for a development of ideas towards useful innovations-the common good. But then, there are those who blog for profit, and they put out stories, one can even say, sell stories of sex, drugs, and scandals to gain a following to their sites, and they do, some in a massive scale. There must be some measures also undertaken to regulate these sites, as there are in the television and the print media.

But in that proposal, other problems arise. What is your test then whereby police power may be exercised in possibly shutting down these type of blogs? In these cases, the Court goes with the Clear and Present Danger rule. Should the same be applied to these blogs? What are the standards, if met, would show a definite clear and present danger? Furthermore, with more and more people discovering blogging everyday, using different hosts and sites, regulating seems to be an almost impossible task.

These days, one’s life can be sold. And you thought you heard it all. It makes you wonder what’s next.