Reflecting on "Becoming a Blogger" (Dennen, 2014) (W3)

One of the articles I read this week was Dr. Dennen's 2014 article, "Becoming a blogger: Trajectories, norms, and activities in a community of practice." Similar to all the other articles I have read so far for this class, I found myself comparing the findings to today's world. I really feel like social media took an upswing around 2016 and has only continued since then. Let's jump into it! 

In her article, Dennen (2014) details how bloggers engaged in a community of practice. They moved from peripheral observers to central contributors not just by writing, but by commenting, linking, and learning the unspoken rules of the space. The Internet today is similar but different. Blogging still exists, but platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube dominate, with creators and influencers shaping content in real-time for followers they may never personally know. This is where I really want to hone in on for today's post. 

There are levels to influencers now. There are some really big ones like IShowSpeed, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, the Paul brothers, etc., but there are also small-time influencers that garner a respectable following. These small-time influencers may not know each other, nor interact meaningfully beyond the boundaries of their own audience. The community doesn't form around them. It forms about them.

This is where Reddit comes in. Communities like r/Blogsnark or other “snark” subs operate like a meta-community. Members collectively scrutinize, parody, or critique influencers across platforms. These commenters have ironically created the very sense of community that many influencers lack among themselves. They share in-jokes, norms, and even moderation rules that are eerily similar to the earlier blogging community that Dennen described. In this way, Reddit has become an unexpected successor to the blogs of the past, albeit with more sarcasm and less self-disclosure.

What's especially interesting is how Reddit now highlights user contributions. Within recent months (to my knowledge), Reddit made a change where they now label a subreddit's most active members as “top 1% commenters." Despite being a platform known for anonymity and fragmentation, Reddit may have inadvertently doubled down on community-building by rewarding regular participation and interaction. In a strange way, it mirrors the transition Dennen described in her article. Subreddit members go from lurking, to commenting, to becoming a "top 1% commenter." Today's average Internet community seems to be less about mutual support and more about shared spectatorship, whether that be of people, personas, and performances.

I know I focused on one specific example in this post, but I’m curious about your perspective. How do you think communities form on the Internet today? Do you agree with my perspective of influencers and "snark" pages? What spaces or behaviors do you think help people move from outsiders to insiders? 

Source:

Dennen, V. P. (2014). Becoming a blogger: Trajectories, norms, and activities in a community of practice. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 350-358. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.028 

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