Backstage blogging

In Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods, ‘backstage’ is a metaphysical realm existing in parallel to the physical world. It’s a hidden dimension, a transitional zone, where gods and mythological beings can reveal their true forms and access their divine powers.

Using ‘backstage’ as a metaphor along with ‘front of house’ in terms of blogging reveals an interesting opportunity for writers. While social media often demands polished, performative content, blogs can serve as both stage and sanctuary.

I’d argue that the most compelling bloggers manage to weave together public performance with the sharing of their private processes. They share not just their conclusions, but the thinking and the various paths that led them there. Their posts are a mixture of finished thoughts interwoven with works-in-progress.

This backstage approach to blogging offers something increasingly rare in our digital age: authenticity without performativity. It’s what blogging was made for! Sharing half-formed ideas which have room to breathe and evolve, being connected together with one another over time. It’s a place where writers can document struggles alongside successes, and where the messy process of thinking becomes as valuable as the polished final product.

I guess my point is that I’d like to encourage those who write for money, pleasure, or both, to invite readers backstage. It’s a way of transforming the solitary act of creation into a shared journey. Yes, it’s a vulnerable act, but it ultimately creates deeper connections than any carefully curated feed ever could. It’s a way of turning readers, in some ways, into collaborators, as they are witnesses to the evolution of ideas rather than mere consumers of finished products.

Perhaps the future of meaningful online discourse lies not in trying to find another ‘public square’ — as Twitter was a decade or more ago — and instead embracing both performance and process? Treating blogs as spanning both front of house and backstage, we can create spaces which allow for both authenticity and artistry, and blur the line between ‘creator’ and ‘audience’.

Image: CC BY-NC-ND Mafalda Beirão