Putting Faces on the Blogs

Last Friday, I gave a paper on the Politics of Blogs at the American Political Science Association conference in Chicago. It is funny how my blog habit turned into an academic paper. Last year, I was writing posts about a camping trip, and this year, I am talking about blogs before a room of 120 PhDs.

On the plane ride over, I was regretting all the personal posts of late. Half the room at the conference was sure to know that I had poison sumac. My colleagues knew that I had a rash. God, how embarrassing. Mental note to refrain from personal posts for a while.

I had the opportunity to meet many academic bloggers: Russell, Chris, Stephen, Dan, Henry, Eszter, Harry, Jacob, and Steve. Everyone was just like their blogs, and I liked them all instantly. A couple times, I was surprised by the appearance of the bloggers. Perhaps because Harry once wrote a post about always feeling middle aged, I assumed that he was rather short and thick waisted. Jowly. Turns out he’s tall and thin and boyish faced.

I didn’t get to talk long enough with some friends. We’ll just have to do it again.

The paper went well enough considering how neurotic I was. It was a large audience by APSA standards, and I knew that some geek was in audience doing simultaneous blogging. I’ll talk about our paper more at another time. Right now, I’m too busy thinking of all the witty things that I should have said.