TTB: metadiscourse
Of course, how could I ignore the obvious one?
In my narrow focus on the latest trend on the Bearblogs Trending Page I failed to mention the overarching big narrative play I have encountered so far: metadiscourse.
What’s that?
In philosophy of language, metadiscourse is the discussion about a discussion, as opposed to a simple discussion about a given topic. Wikipedia
What is the most trendy of all trends?
Of course it is blogging about blogging!1
Most post, including the “writing motivation” kind, found on the Trending page fit well into the metadiscourse category:
- Themes and customisation
- Motivation and struggles of blogging
- Blogs catfights
- Blogs catcalling
It seems that given the option to upvote something, a comunity of bloggers is predominantly interested in blogging itself - sounds obvious, but it isn’t.
It’s not obvious because there are many, many other communities out there that employ some kind of voting = trending system and I would argue the norm in those is not metadiscourse2.
So why it is so in Bearblogs?
Maybe that guy that told all of us we are boring af and then ragequit was on to something?
I’m yet to see an answer, but I’m starting to sort my thoughts, and that’s always helpful.
Till next time, bye.