Getting this thing going
Jan 6th, 2008 by Rebecca
So, after a couple of months of technical problems, I’ve finally got this site set up.
I’ve had this blog project in mind for nearly a year now. The genesis for the idea came to me when I was still blogging at the now-defunct group blog The Dead Roo. A friend and I created The Dead Roo as a general blog on Australian politics in October 2006, and by this time last year, we were getting a small but decent readership together. I began getting frustrated, however, with the responses to my posts. We - like the vast majority of the Australian progressive blogosphere - had a readership that was predominantly white, middle-aged, middle-class, and male - and it showed. I could post on whatever the predominant issue of the day was, but if I attempted to write about rape, sexual assault, or a myriad of other issues that that group couldn’t directly relate to, the silence was deafening - unless one of our right-wing trolls decided to stir up a fuss. I was also getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of specifically Australian feminist blogging - while we have a few good bloggers, we lack anywhere near the critical mass of our American counterparts. So, I planned to set up my own solo project, but it never quite happened.
Fast forward a year, and a bit has changed. For one, The Dead Roo is gone. More than that, however, my perspectives have changed a lot. I initially had in mind your garden variety liberal feminist blog, in the vein of, say, Feministing. This changed significantly, however, when I started broadening my feed list. Reading some brilliant trans bloggers, such as little light, led me to amazing non-trans women of colour bloggers of the likes of Blackamazon and Sylvia. Which led me to disability bloggers, and sex workers rights bloggers, and a myriad of other blogs, and I started to realise that I’d been pretty fucking blind to a lot of things. So, I read - lots - and my beliefs on a whole lot of issues changed.
I’ve been itching to get back into blogging myself now for a while, and while it’ll be a much different blog to that which I originally started a year ago, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to put my own thoughts out there.
I was also getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of specifically Australian feminist blogging - while we have a few good bloggers, we lack anywhere near the critical mass of our American counterparts.
I have to agree with you there. I feel a lot of pressure to write US-centric material, when the major ’sphere-wide debates centre on issues that begin and end in the USA. And while there are some big Australian feminist blogs (Hoyden About Town, Blogger on a Cast Iron Balcony), the Aussie ’sphere seems much whiter than the US ’sphere, which makes me rather uncomfortable.
Yeah, I’d gathered as much - it’s pretty hard to try and keep discussions going on about Australian issues when all the blogs I wind up reading are American.
I’ve also noticed that about the whiteness of the Australian blogosphere in general - I’ve seen very little in the way of blogs by people of colour here, and it hasn’t been for lack of looking.
Hey Bec, Others, I’ve really been looking forward to Burning Words. I’m sure that BW will add something new to what is quite a shallow, white bread Australian blogosphere.
I share your frustration with soggy left, middle class, middle aged white male Australian bloggers. When you and I started the Dead Roo I mentioned that I thought we were on the cusp of the breakout of blogs in Australia, and that it was the right time to start a new group blog in order to be there and be part of it.
But it didn’t happen. I share your frustration with the lack of impact and lack of depth the Australian ’sphere has seen. The breakout of Australian blogging into the “dig league” has yet to happen, and in part I think that’s because of the lack of real alternative appeal Australian blogs have been able to offer Australian people.
Hell, what will you read on LP that’s not already in the opinion pages of the Age?
I think you’re starting BW at the right time, you’re offering something that you’re both passionate about and that we don’t see a lot (read none) of in the Australian ’sphere. I’ve no doubt that if blogging does breakout and play a greater role in the Australian media in the near future, you and Burning Words will be there in the thick of it.
thanks for your ongoing friendship,
Kieran
former co-editor of the Dead Roo.
Thank you so much for the nod. It’s really nice to know I’ve helped you find the people I myself look up to, you know? They do such amazing, important work.
I’ll be looking forward to your perspective.
Oh, and Queen Emily is also an Australian trans blogger: http://sexualambiguities.blogspot.com/
oh, hey, awesome! welcome to the ’sphere, thanks for the link.
[…] means that we’re starkly devoid of local content that means much. As Firefly mentioned on the very first comment on this blog back in January, it means that we wind up spending much of our time writing and commenting on […]