All tomorrow’s posts belong to Japanese ghosts. Nice Momus post from last month about trends in blogging from Japan.
So let’s get this straight: the majority of the world’s blogs are in Japanese. They’re written by people who don’t reveal their names or their inner thoughts because they don’t know who’s reading and don’t want to give offense. They don’t show faces and don’t get comments. Their tone is neutral, humble, self-effacing. “Karaoke for shy people” is how the Post describes this posting style, but to me it sounds positively ghostly. The blogosphere is haunted.
I love this notion purely because it’s so diametrically opposed to the politico-centric perception of blogging. A gently bubbling sea of humanity strikes me as a quite wonderful thing.