A Ready Audience for an Unready Blogger?

I still don't know what my blog should be about. I notice that a good number of people who have blogs talk about music, or news, or cooking, or something interesting. I don't really feel like I can talk about any of those things - I'm not really quite an expert on anything (well, at least anything I can blog about.) But even if I picked a topic, I'd have a problem. And it's this...

I noticed that a lot of blogs make assumptions about the audience they are writing to. As if, the audience KNOWS the blogger very well. They say things like "as we all now, I don't like poppy seeds.." or "as I've said all along, I think cutting it off was the best thing to do."

It's interesting, because I wonder whether or not the audience knows the blogger at all, let alone to the point of knowing their personal tastes and idiosyncrasies. Personally, I get a little suspicious and wonder whether or not anyone is reading their blog at all. What if they are like that crazy person at home who sits in the bathrobe at 3AM and talks to the people on QVC as if they are their personal friends? "Oh Suzanne, you vixen - you KNOW how much I love your jokes. You are just TOO much. Yes, I loved the Hummel figurines - you know how much I love those. Yes, I'll take two locket pendants in blue. So what are you doing for the holidays? I'm having a party if you don't have plans..."

Creepy.

I'm sure they have audiences though (at least, I hope they do...or it's weird.) I don't yet. I look at the comment boxes, and I see nothing. Nada. How sad. I also have no followers. I have no linked blogs. Kind of a bloggers desolate wasteland in here.

A friend of mine says I should write about myself in my blog, but I think I'm rather boring. More so, how can I write about myself when I have no one to write to? To whom can I say "As we all know, I really hate..." or "I've said this before but.." It's like I'm having a conversation with someone who isn't really there. And then that means, when writing about myself, it will have to be mostly declarative sentences. Or I'm going to look crazy.

I also can't really tell stories about myself, because I don't have anyone technically listening and responding. Also crazy-person behavior. So, pretty much, I'm writing out into the ether.

Or am I?

A couple weeks ago my Mom's computer went wonky on her. I don't really know that I believe her. I suspect that it was just fine and she just downloaded a virus or didn't know how to turn it on or something. My Mom is like that. I love my Mom, but sometimes she overreacts to things instead of just chilling out and looking to see, say, if the plug came out of the wall. Unlike us who investigate on the Internet first, she just panics and thinks she's either broken it or its defective.

(P.S. to the faux audience - while on the subject of parents and technology, remind me to talk about when my Mother learned how to TXT sometime.)

Apparently, though, she had the wherewithal to get on the phone with the representative from HP and get talked through various fixes to the problem. I guess as time went on, her technical skills started to lag those necessary to fix the problem. HP did that nifty remote-computer takeover, and started to snoop around her computer. Of course, my Mom had never seen this before - she was just astonished. Bless her.

While the HP representative (a nice gent from India) was snooping to fix the computer for a couple hours, he remained on the phone with my Mother. My Mother, being from another generation, didn't know that you're supposed to sit there in utter silence and contempt of the computer helpline people. Instead, she fell for the witty banter he is trained to say, such as "how is there weather there, Mrs. Bolton?" Asking a nice Michigan mom (in the middle of a Michigan winter) that question is just asking for TMI. Let the mudflow of information begin.

I'm not sure if all the HP Reps are this chatty or my Mom just cornered the poor guy. By the time the call was over, the HP rep and my Mom had talked about: his kids, her kids, each others plans for the Holidays, and how he is recently married. The guy even found a way to share PICTURES of his kids, over the computer somehow (this may be a whopper by my Mom). It even got to the point where the guy asked my Mom how long she and my Father have been married. "32 years," she responded. Says the HP Rep: "Do you have any advice for me?" To which, of course, my Mother had much advice to offer.

The Rep eventually found out it was a bad hard drive (I still don't believe - I'm sure she just had her sleep mode set to 2 seconds or something). They made arrangements to send the computer in for repair. I'm sure the phone call was supposed to end there, but considering the soulmate my Mother had found in the HP Rep in India, I'm sure the call lingered on a bit longer. Knowing my Mom, and considering she probably had never talked to anyone in India before (and may never again), she probably wanted the moment to last.

The moral of the story? Well, first, that my newbie Mother got more of a devoted Internet audience on a tech call to Hewlett-Packard than I have with a blog and nearly 20 years of being on the Net. Ugh.

It also means, I suppose, that just assuming that you do have an audience can work. The Hewlett Packard Rep did; he assumed someone like my Mom would respond to those computer-driven questions. (Little does HP know about my Mother - they may want to dial back the depth of even the most shallow questions a bit or their phone lines are going to burn up). I guess questions like "...and how is your family this evening?" work, even if one doesn't have a spouse or kids in the house.

My Mom also did, by assuming that the HP Rep would listen to a few things about her kids - and then her grandkids, marriage, and the weather - and fill in what he didn't know with his imagination. I don't know what the customs are in India, but she just assumed that her advice for her American marriage would apply to his new one. And apparently, somehow, it did.

The moral of the story is that I guess it's okay to assume an audience with technology in general. As long as I don't PRETEND I have an audience, which starts to work its way into crazy "Imaginary Friends and Magical Creatures" territory.

Besides, if the Internet is consuming everything - words, video, images, recordings - for all of time, then someday and at some point I will have an audience. I may be dead by that point, but my words will live on. To quote Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca (out of context), "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

And if not, it just so happens I also own an HP, too.