I think you’re right. Deliberately deceiving people over the reality or otherwise of a weblog is probably not a particularly good idea. It certainly doesn’t show any particular degree of creativity. If nobody guesses it’s something I suppose, but entertaining fiction is mostly highly implausible anyway.

It could sap the power of the medium, you are correct there I think, as part of the power comes from the assumption that most weblogs are at least closely based on real life. This one is - slightly edited, of course, with a great many boring things omitted (and a great many other boring things left in). It’s more a matter of letting friends know what I’m up to than trying to say anything in particular to the world. Where am I going with this point? I have no idea. I think I lost it somewhere around the fifteenth word.

I’m torn. Part of me thinks that creating a fictional blog that pretends to be real is too manipulative. A work of fiction should stand on it’s own terms, it shouldn’t rely on false perceptions.

But maybe this would sap the power of the medium. I don’t know. I’m working on a fictional blog right now, and I’m trying to figure out which way to go with it.

What do you think?

Perhaps part of the appeal of it is that people don’t necessarily know that they’re commenting on a fictional person’s life. Yes, we’re all at least partially fictional online, but how many of us actually invent a whole new person, setting and interactions for their blog?

Also, isn’t that idea just Adrian Mole done online?