Harvard Blogger Numbers Grow

While the word ‘blog’ would have confused many just a few years ago, the phenomenon of keeping a daily online journal has spread across the country, and Harvard is no exception.

The online group “Harvard” on Xanga.com, a website that offers free blogging, boasts 376 users. The group “Harvard Class of 2008” on Xanga boasts of 90 users alone.

The hub blogs.law.harvard.edu hosts the blogs of nearly 600 Harvard affiliates.

“We’re working on new initiatives to increase participation and strengthen the community,” said Wendy B. Koslow, the Program Coordinator for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

Students use blogs to document their dating life, keep in touch while studying abroad, or simply as a public journal.

Although people have kept blogs for years, the phenomenon received widespread media attention when this summer’s Democratic and Republican national conventions invited prominent bloggers to the press corps.

A graduate of the Class of 2004, who wished to remain anonymous, has obtained some notoriety for her blog, “missmimesis,” which is currently featured in nerve.com’s Blog-A-Log competition. The Nerve Blog-A-Log allows readers to numerically rate six featured blogs until the lowest scoring blogger is replaced. Her blog, which is connected to her online personal ad on the site, examines the contemporary dating scene.

“I’m interested in thinking about how sexuality intersects with culture,” she said.

While she will discuss topics such as STDs, sexuality theory, and her love-life, there are certain boundaries she will not cross. “I try not to say anything cruel about people. I try to keep people’s identities veiled,” she said.

But most bloggers write more for family and friends than for fame. Stuart C. Wulsin ’06 started his Xanga blog in August when he arrived in Chile to start his study abroad program. He updates his blog weekly, relating his cultural observations, travel adventures and political opinions.

“Those interested can check whenever they want without feeling an awkward obligation to respond while those uninterested don’t feel guilty,” Wulsin wrote in an e-mail.

Stephen C. Walker ’05 uses his Xanga as a chronology of his thesis-writing process. An East Asian Studies concentrator, Walker posts his thoughts on the Chinese philosophy tracts he is reading and documents meetings with various advisors.

“I write about things that strike me or move me,” Walker said.

Anna R. Himmelrich ’05, who started her blog while she had a summer internship in Atlanta, wrote in an e-mail that she enjoys her style of blogging—“personal narrative that explicitly strives to entertain rather than to impress the audience.” But Himmelrich said that exposing her personal thought has lead to some awkward experiences.

“The weirdest moment was probably when someone who lives in Alaska posted a comment introducing himself as one of the men mentioned in a New York Times article about gender imbalance in Alaska,” Himmelrich wrote.

Although students seem to be utilizing blogs widely, student organizations are only beginning to adopt the practice. The Harvard Republican Club (HRC) began its blog, according to HRC Member-at-Large James P. M. Paquette ‘06, in the spring and posted regularly until they took a summer hiatus.

“I think it heightens the profile of the HRC in an important way and in a more important way, it allows for the policy committee to spark conversations that are truly of importance to conservatives on campus,” said Paquette.

When asked why other organizations don’t have weblogs, Paquette said, “I don’t think its a readily apparent idea [to start an organizational weblog]. I think a group must be innovative in a certain way.”