Egypt: My Different Feelings Towards Blogging · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

You consciously decide to blog about your life and go into personal details. Then you realise that all your relatives and friends have been reading your blog.
Now that you are exposed, are you as free as you thought you were?
Egyptian blogger Mohamed El Tohamy (Aka 2-Hamy) tackles this issue here (Ar) and writes about his new feelings towards blogging.
بعد فترة في التدوين .. عرفت أسهل طريق في نجاح المدونات هو أن تكتب موضوعات السياسية و أرتبطت فكرة السياسية بمعنى كلمة مدونة عن الناس البعيدة عن المجال ..ولكني فضلت أن أدون عني وعن حياتي الشخصية وعن أصدقائي .. ظلت مدونتي نجاحه حتى أصبحت عائلتي و أصدقائي و معارفي تتابع المدونة ..لم أعد أكتب مثل ما قبل ..لم أعد أشعر بحريتي وتمنيت لو كنت شخصية خفية لا احد يعرف من أنا ؟ بدأت أشعر أن كلامي سوف يحسب في يوم من الأيام عليا .. لدى شعور غريب أن شخص غريب سوف يظهر في حياتي ويكون قرأ كل ما كتبت … تخيل شخص يعرف عنك كل شئ وأنت لا تعرف عنه اى شئ
لا أستطيع أن امتنع عن التدوين ولا أستطيع أن أعود إلى الماضي و أن أدون بحرية
After blogging for a while, I realised that the simplest way to have a successful blog is by writing about political subjects. People not familiar with blogging linked politics to blogging. However I preferred to write about my personal life and friends. And my blog became successful until I found out that my family and friends read it. And then I found myself not capable of writing as before. I am not comfortable any more, and wished that I was a hidden person whom no one knew. I started to feel that everything I say will be taken against me. I have a strange feeling that someone I don't know will show up in my life and that one will be reading every post I wrote. Can you imagine that there is someone who knows everything about you, and you know nothing about him/her.
I just cannot stop blogging; I cannot go back in time and I also cannot write as freely as I used to do before.