Saturday, August 6, 2011

You can't be a blogger and write about it too

    I’m a little bit confused right now.
    I started this blog, on this website, under the assumption that the whole point was writing. Not necessarily writing well, or writing much, or writing anything remotely interesting to anyone else-- but writing nonetheless. Writing is an aspect of English language and studies, am I correct? I sure hope I am; I went to college for four years and obtained a Bachelors degree in English, so it would really speak poorly of the American educational system if I wasn’t even sure of that.
    However, when I went to the “edit profile” section of the website and attempted to update my “industry” under work information, I found no option for “English” or “Writing” or anything of the sort. Sure, it included “Communications or media” and “Publishing,” which sort of fall under the same category, but aren’t very inclusive. I don’t feel either of those incorporates who I am and what my degree prepared me to do.
    Why? True, I don’t have a job in my field yet, but some other people blog (or similar-- they write) for a living. Are the creators of the website just assuming this is a place for individuals whose interest in writing doesn’t extend beyond relating the details of their lives? Are professional writers, or literature snobs, or people who proofread students’ essays unwelcome here? What if I chose to make my living studying dusty tomes written in Old English, or analyzing character development in modern literature, or any of a hundred things which don’t actually fall under the category of being a “student” or someone in “publishing”? I know it’s a technicality, but to me and perhaps to many others whose industry can only be summed up by “ENGLISH” or “WRITING” or something similar and slightly broader, it’s an important technicality.
    I suppose the simple answer is “don’t respond; don’t choose an option on the drop-down list and just let it go.” I could, but writing is a piece of English, and I was trained to read and write and analyze. Thus, I write about the things I see and experience-- and yet, this website doesn’t give me the option to exclaim that to the world in any other way.
    So, again, I write. I analyze. I explore and explain my frustration with the fact that I cannot choose the proper industry from a list to complete a profile which (most likely) very few people will ever notice or read.

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