Passive Aggressivness in Blogs

Lately I have noticed a lot of passive-aggressive behavior in the blogging community. What is it about being online that brings out bad behavior? On my other blog, all of my "friends" are people I knew when I lived back in the great white north. Blogging has been quite a lovely tool to help me keep in touch with them. It allows me to update everyone with little tid-bits of my life, without actually having to email everyone. And reading a blog is totally voluntary. I don't feel right inundating every one's in box with crap that they really don't care about. Who knows, maybe some of these people that I think care about what's going on in my life, could give a crap less. If they want to see what's going on, they can click on a link and read away. And it works the other way. I get to read about my friends, and get a little picture about the happenings in their lives if I so choose.

Anyways, the whole idea sounds all fine and dandy, except people seemed to have forgotten how to behave. The fact that you can write something from the safety of your own computer and not look the other person in the eye, allows people to say all kinds of mean stuff without any reservation. But they don't just come right out and say it, they get little jabs in here and there that are directed to someone, but don't really come right out and say, "Hey So-and-So, you're a jerk". The worst part about it all, is these little jabs are being broadcast to any and every reader of the blog.

I started noticing it mostly when some drama started creeping into my group of friends. Someone started dating his best friends girlfriend, another couple of friends got involved in a business/money relationship that turned bad, and another one burned some bridges and became paranoid about being stalked by "lurkers".

My point is, instead of hinting at little things online, why don't you try facing that person, and talking with them? If you can't say it to their face, maybe it isn't worth saying at all. And maybe I'm as guilty of this behavior just as much as everyone else. After all, creating this "secret" blog without telling any one of my friends about it is a little passive aggressive if you think about it. But my whole reason for creating this blog, was not to hide things from anyone, I'm just looking to have a little fun. And anyone who happens to find this blog and actually is interested enough to read it, is welcome.