It is often claimed that the Internet has radically changed the way we communicate. The ease with which anybody can maintain a “My Space” page or similar has apparently caused an explosion of personal expression. Yeah, right. Blogging has been occurring for decades in homes all over the world way before people started buying computers.

I’ve been learning about people’s lives, and sharing my own, in a public way well before I ever read a blog. Why do you think fridges were invented? Oh, yes, the history books probably record that fridges were an important step forward in long term food storage, but any old shiphand can tell you meat can easily be preserved by just burying it in salt. No matter what you read on a blog, the real story of anyone’s life is their fridge door

You can tell a lot about someone by looking at their fridge. Trendy young people have them in brushed stainless steel, with built in water and ice dispensers. These dispensers are kind of fun but, really, what does it say about you if you need a labour saving device to help with the “arduous” task of turning on a tap? Although, in all seriousness, I can see how if you were literally dying of thirst it would be handy to just shove your glass in a hole in the fridge rather than wasting precious seconds getting to the sink.

Every now and then you will come across the disturbing sight of a fridge without any magnets. This is a sad, sorry state of affairs. It implies the fridge owner has no friends, family, or other social connections whose communications need to be logged. Either that or they are obsessively tidy, which I guess could lead to a lack of friends, family or social connections in case they tramp a dust molecule on the twice-a-day-vacuumed carpet. Or, even worse, leave a finger-print on the brushed stainless steel fridge door! All funny talk aside, a truly blank fridge is not a pretty sight. In fact, these fridges are downright scary. They are like looking into a dead person’s eyes.

Of course, you probably don’t want to reach the other extreme point of fridge blogging either. This is where there are so many magnets, paintings from grandchildren, postcards, birthday invitations and newspaper cuttings that you can’t find the handle to open the fridge when you want something to eat. These people would probably find it better to buy a second hand fridge, remove the door, and mount it on a wall somewhere to display their life story. The real fridge could then host a couple of important phone numbers and maybe the shopping list, while still allowing adequate access to the contents.

It’s funny to think what might have happened to fridge blogging had the Internet never been invented. My theory is before much longer fridges would no longer have been kept in kitchens but lined up along people’s front yards. You could have visited a blog any time you liked by simply walking down the road. Imagine that, blogging and overcoming the nation’s obesity crisis simultaneously! Long live the fridge!
Posted by A.Ready