Blog Assignment 2: A Walk Around the Blog

I chose to look at the blog of Aarron Kemp. The title is “Courting Amsterdam.” In terms of content, this, as well as the subheading, are very self-conscious in their characterization of Aarron’s view of his particular relationship to Amsterdam and the study abroad program. Amsterdam is not merely a place to visit, but a construction to be “enfolded.” The title itself stresses a mutual relationship, where one does not subsume the other.
There is also great attention paid to structure. Each blog post, in fact, is organized firmly around a unique “socially-constructed” template. The first post, for example, is in the format of a letter or email, with a formal greeting and sign-off; the last post is a 3-entry-long diary; one of the posts in the middle is organized like a product review. How much of this was spontaneously decided and how much was explicitly predetermined is unknown to me, but what is particularly interesting is the variety of organizations used, and the consistency with which they are imposed. Some of these structures are even nested, as in the list of events contained within the letter (though the list is somewhat more free-form).
In a way, the blog format does not seem to have provided enough structure, or a strong enough template, with which to shape a complete and meaningful communication. Within the blog, each entry is made to fit into a context that originated from somewhere else. And these contexts are actually used skillfully and appropriately to inform the meaning of the entries, but it also suggests a sort of resistance or unwillingness to interact with the blog structure in its own right. The patchwork of external forms is also a kind of encapsulation.
One more odd feature is the repetition of the last post, the diary. The complete entry was posted three times, within a minute of each other. The text of each is identical, or nearly so. The first post, however, has two pictures at the bottom, while the second has only one, and the third has none. I’m not sure if this was an error, or if I have simply not looked attentively enough to discover its real purpose. But I almost suspect (almost almost) that the existence of these three nearly identical posts contradicts my argument above about Aarron’s avoidance of direct exchange with the blog format (whatever that might actually be). Perhaps this repetition is in itself actually part of an observation on this very structure. Then again, does the original intent matter anymore?