Why I Love Wil Wheaton (and Other Confessions of a Blogger)

by Jen Matthewson

My life as a blogger

When I saw an e-mail message in my box from Wil Wheaton, I went crazy. I had to tell my fellow-Trekkie friends. And I absolutely had to post it in my LiveJournal.

LiveJournal, or LJ for the insiders, is just one of many blogs—short for Web logs—available on the Internet. A blog in its truest form is an online journal, oftentimes with options for visitors and readers to leave comments about the author's postings. Some blogs are individual accounts, hosted on personal servers. Others, like LiveJournal, DeadJournal, and Audioblogs, are communities of blogs where one can sign up, make entries, and comment on other blogs.

Like most Internet creations, the exact date of the first blogger is unknown. According to one account of blog history, blogs were officially named by Jorn Barger in 1997. The first blogging communities were created when an editor, interested in being able to read all his friends' blogs, created a directory of their online diaries. A community of bloggers was born.

In 2001, a friend who was a founding member of LJ introduced me to the community. As a lifelong diary keeper, blogging was easy for me. I wrote about my daily activities and my thoughts on life and relationships. I listed the friend who introduced me as a "friend" on the LJ site, which allowed her to read my blog whenever I posted. Soon after, a number of her friends found my blog and suddenly, I had my own blogging community.

Blogging communities exist in every major city in the world. There are communities devoted to special interests, like writing or volunteer work. In these communities, people ask questions, give opinions, post artwork and thoughts they would never otherwise offer to groups of people with the same interests and philosophies.

I discovered there are meet-ups and drink-ups and get-togethers where members of the same community meet face-to-face after establishing relationships via their online community.

I quickly became a blogging addict. I checked my friends' blogs 10 times a day. I commented on others blog postings and posted to my blog about mundane activities: E-mailed 142 people today, answered 49 calls. There must be a better job than this. I posted about private things: I cried all day today thinking about my friend's funeral. I miss her terribly.

One of the major differences between blogs and paper journals is that in blog communities, people can always comment back. On some level, you're writing for an audience. One fellow blogger might comment: "Kick him to the curb!" while another will comment "No, he really loves you!" It's like having your own personal support group. Or being a part of an interactive soap opera.

Then I was introduced to ultimate blogger indulgence: celebrity bloggers.

You gotta love a man who loves the 80s

I just got back from LASFS about an hour or so ago. I was gonna just write about it real quick and then try to grab some sleep, but I realized I was hungry so a bowl of pasta later (Yeah, that's the way to get rid of the gut and double chin, Wil, have lots of PASTA before bed) I found myself watching I Love the 80s Strikes Back on VH-1.

It's 11 pm on a weeknight and I'm busy reading Wil Wheaton's latest blog entry. Fanatic fan, diehard girlie crush—call it what you will. But Wil has been my longtime love and his blog is my newest obsession.

Star of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wheaton designed a Web site in 2000 to let everyone know he was still "alive and kicking" after being asked by a waitress if he "used to be an actor." Today, his blog is visited by thousands of adoring fans and curious readers.

The comments on Wheaton's blog entries can often number in the hundreds, mostly from avid fans who come to read about the star's personal life. Wheaton divulges his feelings on everything from his family to his acting career to politics.

It's the perfect activity for entertainers who love the spotlight, and fans who love to read about the spotlight.

Wheaton's blog, though only a snippet of the man's life, is like a direct line to someone previously untouchable, inaccessible, a friendly face, funny words. Comfort and a bit of humanity, if you will, from someone you would recognize on the street but know only on a limited basis.

And sometimes a bit of humanity from a stranger you adore is the only thing that really satisfies.

Jennifer Matthewson is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has appeared in The Writer magazine and her first book, A Graduate's Guide to the Real World, will be published in 2004.
Wil Wheaton's blog is located at www.wilwheaton.net.