"I've Got Something to Say!"--Blogging in Taiwan

Since the beginning of civilization, humans have had the desire to share their experiences and inner thoughts with each other. In the past, however, economic and technological circumstances limited one's audience--it's expensive and troublesome for people to print and distribute large numbers of copies of their writings, and it's tough to get a manuscript accepted by a large media outlet. Someone desiring to create a webpage has to know how to write code and have it hosted somewhere. "DIY media" has a romantic ring to it, but it was harder than it sounded to actually put it out.

These technological barriers, however, have been lowered greatly by the advent of blogging culture. After learning a few simple skill, anyone can start a blog with all the basic functions. A blog provides unlimited space for self-expression, and no editor can reject your work. A blogger is a writer, layout artist, and publisher, all in one. Now it is possible to become the media.

The ironic kuso style has become an established part of Taiwan's online culture. Pictured here is a character at a cosplay event held at NTU.

The Web 2.0 spirit

The word "blog" is short for "web log." A blog is a sort of online personal diary, with entries displayed in reverse chronological order. Bloggers can design their blogs' layouts themselves, insert graphics or video in their text, and allow readers to leave comments or forward entries to friends.

As opposed to the major media outlets, which are controlled by a small number of corporations, personal blogs are a channel of mass communication that is open to all--a status aptly expressed in the book title We the Media. Blogging lets anyone become a media outlet. In the past, all media, including publishing and television, was top-down. Blogs, on the other hand, operate from the bottom up. Everyone can express themselves and be in control of their own websites.

The idea of blogging sits well with the recent phenomenon of distributed, "point-to-point" interaction that Internet observers have termed "Web 2.0." According to this notion, the era of the big Internet portals (such as Yahoo! and PCHome) is over, and a new era of highly personalized websites is upon us. Users are no longer just passive receivers of content, but also its creators. By keeping the content fresh, they share and participate.

Though there are popular blogs that receive incredible numbers of visitors, most people spend more time reading their friends' blogs. Those blogs might not get much traffic, but they represent a web of social interaction. That's why they've been termed "virtual communities" made up of the blogger, commenters, and readers. Only with this sort of interaction is a sense of mutual understanding created.

A-Hsien expressed his feelings about his breakup with his girlfriend on his blog. Moved by his simple but heartfelt sketches, she returned to him.

A big space for you

Blogs are like diaries, and most bloggers make daily entries about their life experiences and limit access to just a few good friends. Their blogs' readerships may be small, but sometimes they can change someone's life.

One example is a 33-year-old advertising company employee, A-Hsien. A few years ago, he followed his dream of going to America to study animation. Upon his return to Taiwan, his girlfriend left him, saying the feeling was gone from their relationship. As an outlet for his feelings of depression, he started doing illustrations concerning his feelings for his ex during his free time at work and posting them on his blog.

A-Hsien's style was simple, and his illustrations were mostly reflections on times he spent with his girlfriend. They were funny, but tinged with sadness. One was of him blindfolded, being led by her. The caption read, "I love the feeling of you leading me, very very very much." In another, he is lying on one side of a big double bed, saying, "I'm still in the habit of leaving a big space for you."

At first, A-Hsien only gave the webpage's address to a few friends and didn't tell his ex about it. But one of his friends was so moved by the pictures, he couldn't help but secretly forward the address to her. She was amazed at the depth of his feelings for her, and the two came to understand each other better thanks to the blog. After he'd been drawing for 86 days, she decided to give him another chance and they got back together.

A-Hsien's story is only one of many taking place in the blog world every day. Bloggers have a quiet space in which they can express all the ups and downs of their lives.

Young Taiwanese use their blogs to show off photos taken with ubiquitous digital cameras.

Creative outlet

In addition to these diary-style blogs full of innermost confessions, there are also blogs in which people show off their creativity. It might be fiction, photographs, travel diaries, restaurant reviews, or even social criticism. Not only do average people who'd be ignored by the mainstream media have an outlet for their creativity in this new platform, but even established authors like Chi Ta-wei and Hsu Mei-yi are experimenting with it, too, using blogs to release new writings and interact with readers.

Author Ko Yu-fen was invited to blog for the China Times. The National Chengchi University assistant professor was intrigued by the potential of DIY media and began posting fiction, essays, book reviews, and even academic writings.

Authors are public figures, however, and on top of that, the China Times blogs saw a lot of traffic. That meant that it wasn't long before Ko started receiving vitriolic comments attacking her opinion pieces. When she'd mention how tired she was from working, she'd get savaged for being an "out-of-touch" academic who didn't know real hardship. "If I weren't so lazy, I'd really like to go somewhere else and start up an anonymous blog where I could write freely," she says. She began selecting less controversial essays on topics drawn from everyday life for posting to the blog. "I started putting fewer opinionated academic articles and critical essays in that space," she says.

She hated the contentiousness some readers brought, but the interactive nature of blogging left an impression on Ko--her essay "My Computer Fetishism," which described the mix of love and fear she feels for new technology, struck a chord with many readers and ended up attracting more than 60 heartfelt comments. The response she gets from readers inspires her. It also impressed a computer magazine enough to offer this self-described "technology moron" a regular column. In another one of her posts, entitled "Hard Road to Travel," she recalls reading for her PhD during a snowy American winter and describes the loneliness she felt confronting the insecurity in her life and career. Students studying abroad forwarded it to one another. Many women who were or had been overseas students could relate to her experiences and commented on the blog about how moved they were.

Anyone can easily set up a blog and make themselves heard.

Online activism

Blogs' atmosphere of freewheeling debate has become a fresh and influential force in Taiwan. Facing certain issues, bloggers sometimes link to and support one another--blogs are becoming an emerging force in social activism. For example, when China passed its Anti-Secession Law in 2005, a blog called "Young Partisans for Name Rectification" started a campaign called "Letters from Peace" which asked like-minded people to write down their family members' life stories as a form of protest. More than 20 bloggers participated.

And when Fulung, the bathing beach in Taipei County's Kungliao where the Hohaiyan Music Festival is held, fell victim to erosion due to construction of Taipower's fourth nuclear plant, Zheng Gaetan, a drummer with the indie rock band Peppermint, organized a group called "Alternative Media Generator" with friends. They issued an online petition to save the beach in 2005, and within just a short time, many other bands and music fans added the campaign's demands to their own blogs, along with their comments on the issue. The action was an example of the success blogs can have at bringing an issue into the public eye. Influenced by what they'd read online, many of the bands performing at Hohaiyan made sure to remind revelers that the very sand they were standing on was in serious jeopardy.

Blogs are invaluable resources for many travelers to destinations not covered by the guidebooks. Pictured here is Tokyo's Jimbocho district, famous for its many used book stores.

Kuso--the new style

The American master of Pop art Andy Warhol once said, "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." He meant that in a constantly changing society where the media obsessively seeks out the newest thing, anyone who wanted to could achieve a moment of fame. This prophetic remark from 1968 is being fulfilled in the world of blogs.

Wanwan, a nine-to-fiver in her twenties, has been posting cartoons about her life on her blog since the end of 2004. Her blog just happened to become wildly popular--it's had 40 million visits, and 150,000 people log on every day, making her the most popular Taiwanese blogger of 2005.

"Kuso culture," which like Wanwan's material begins with everyday life experiences and then gives them an imaginative, ironic twist, is now the rage of Taiwan's blogs. The word kuso, which literally means "crap" in Japanese, comes from Japanese youth pop culture, and refers to amateur, Dadaesque works by average people. The crude techniques used give the work a cheeky originality.

While Wanwan's work is all original, the kuso style often involves altering pre-existing material. A group of friends, for instance, acted out a trailer for a popular romantic film, with hammy imitations of the actors put on for laughs. Someone copied the flashy graphic style of the Apple Daily tabloid and put up his own photos he'd collected from around the Internet, calling it the Pineapple Daily--the site's received more than a million visitors. A few bloggers watch for typos and other mistakes in the press and mock them on their site. The site's motto mimics that of the old cartoon heroes, the "Righteous Warriors": "Let's go! Mistake Attack Force!"

This kind of tongue-in-cheek content would never make it into the mainstream media, but it's become the style of many blogs. They reject sanctimoniousness and try to make everything fun. Critics might say they lack depth, but behind the kuso trend is the strong desire of a new generation to rebel against mainstream values. Their ironic attitude is actually an alternative form of social observation. These kuso-style blogs are seeing millions of visitors--that's in the league of the mainstream media. Their influence is not to be underestimated.

Power to the townspeople

The advent of blogs means that people are no longer tiny islands in an ocean of information. Those of like opinion can interact and share information.

The spirit of blogging can be described with a catchphrase going around the net in Taiwan: "The townspeople have the power!" It's a reference to a scene from the Stephen Chow film Hail the Judge when a nosy townsperson says, "I came in with the townspeople to see what the fuss was about. But now I'm a bit too close to the action...." The "townspeople" are a motley crew who make a mountain out of every molehill and love to give their opinions. As the blogging movement gains steam, perhaps the quality of discourse will be raised. As of now, Taiwan's bloggers may still be lone voices in the wilderness, but the forum their medium provides for expression and stating grievances is a cultural phenomenon with great potential. As more and more people get serious about making their own media, perhaps blogs will become a true cultural force in Taiwan.

Blogs and other formats compared

Personal website:

There's a lot of freedom, but you have to rent space on a server and know computer languages like HTML and Java. The technological barriers to entry are quite high.

Bulletin Board System (BBS):

Popular among university students in Taiwan. Most of the systems are related to universities and schools. Topics discussed on the BBSes include politics, gossips, sports, music, etc. There is a strong sense of interaction between participants, but the interface is rather difficult to use and special software is required. The average user will have a hard time using BBSes. National Taiwan University's PTT is a representative example.

"Personalized news" site:

A kind of standardized news site people can apply for, through which they can make announcements in diary-like form. Though it is media created by individuals, the format of these types of sites is rather inflexible. They do not support hypertext like blogs do, and are less interactive. PCHome's Mypaper service is an example.

Blog:

A type of webpage with a format users can customize according to their own desires. Anyone who wants to start a blog can just sign up for an account with a site offering blogging services and they will have a space in which they can show off their creativity. Readers can also interact in real time by leaving comments about the blog's postings. Major blogging services in Taiwan include Wretch (www.wretch.cc), Yam (blog.yam.com), and Sina (blog.sina.com.tw).