Blogging Archaeology, Good, Bad, Badder…

The Archaeology Blogging Carnival rolls along!

If you don’t know what the Blogging Carnival is click the link to go to Doug’s Archaeology blog and read up on it. You can catch up in November’s questions and answers here.

This month we’re asked to reflect on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of blogging archaeology.

The Good

I went into some of this in November’s question, but Doug wants us to go a little deeper.

What has been good about blogging? Well, to focus mainly on my blog and my YouTube channel before that, on top of getting to meet people from all over the world I get to hear stories from people who are really excited about what I do. For example when I went to DC. for the Reason Rally in 2012 I met several people who told me they loved what I did, and they liked that there was someone out there debunking pseudoarchaeology. Needless to say that felt really good, and it was weird to be recognized by total strangers, but fun.

Also, I recall some of the nice comments on my Mary Anning post. Apparently, one of her descendants had gotten a hold of my post and really liked what I said, and how I presented it. That felt really good.

Also, I enjoy talking with people who have questions about the topics I cover. It often leads to a back-and-forth and a few times I have learned something new.

Probably the best part was when one of my past professors told me he was teaching a “Lost Civilizations” class and he’d like to have me in the class. He’d read my blog and liked what I did. He’s even referenced me a few times online. That’s pretty damn cool for me.

Mostly though I just like doing this. I loved all this Ancient Alien, Lost Civilizations, History Mysteries, and Forbidden Archaeology as a kid. I ate it up, never missed an episode. It might have influenced me to become an archaeologist; it could have just been Harrison Ford’s chiseled jaw. Either way, this was a natural fit for me. I love looking at the mysteries, love hearing the stories, love thinking “What if?” Then I like to indulge my other great childhood passion, the Great Detective, and tear into the mysteries to find the truth (maybe that’s more X-Files).

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way I expected them too, and those are the things I really like. Take the Antikythera Mechanism for example. I was pretty convinced that it was going to be a fake, but when I researched it I found it’s quite legit. It’s also incredibly interesting to learn about, and who doesn’t like learning new things?

The Bad

What’s bad about blogging? For me it’s the opening myself up to public scrutiny.

Recently I was accused of being anonymous on my blog, which is mostly true, but there are reasons for my half-hearted attempt at anonymity. When I started ArchyFantasies I originally was making videos for YouTube, which is not a kind place to be in the first place for anyone. Now imagine being an uppity woman telling people Aliens aren’t real. Your hate mail gets pretty graphic pretty quick, and it all pretty much revolves around how you look and what kinds of adult favors you can perform, oh and rape.

So when I decided to make a blog out of the channel, because I was basically too lazy to make videos and for some reason thought it’d be easier to write a blog (silly me), I wanted to have a little more control over what people could know about me, and what they could say about me. Which is why I don’t have a picture of myself on the About page and I moderate all comments on my posts.  I still get occasional comments that are NSFW, but I have more control over them than I did on YouTube.

The Ugly

The Ugly part isn’t so ugly really. It is, however, something that irks me. The reactions I get when I mention my blog are mot always good. Mention pseudoarchaeology to some archaeologists, and you’ll be lucky to even get a funny grin. It makes it difficult to defend ‘mainstream’ archaeology to those who buy into pseudoarchaeology, when their main complaint is basically that academia is rude to them when they ask questions. People want information, and they’ll take it from wherever they can get it. Often not knowing how to spot bad sources.

I have been told that everything I am trying to do with my blog is a waste of time and that there is no point in reaching out to people who have questions about pseudoarchaeology because there are plenty of professional journals out there that deal with real science that people should be reading instead. This incredibly insulting and privilege-blind comment is something I am encountering more and more the longer I do this. These are not always aimed at me, but they almost exclusively come from those in academia and are often accompanied with the comment “I don’t like Blogs/Blogging/Bloggers.”

What’s not being taken into consideration with this kind of comment is that the average person does not have access to professional journals. Even if they did, most don’t have the education to understand what they are reading in the journals. They also don’t have the connections to simply call a professor or PhD and ask them questions about a paper with their name on it.

However, they do have access to popular books on Atlantis and poorly written ‘news’ articles on archaeological discoveries that glance over important details and sensationalize falsehoods.  They have access to Discovery and History channel and entertaining shows like American Diggers and Ancient Aliens. They have access to popular magazines that produce professional looking articles for “Forbidden” archaeology, which are glossy and exciting. They can afford to attend Cult Science conferences talking about mysterious artifacts that baffle modern archaeologists.  The average person doesn’t have access to professional archaeology, but they do have fake archaeology practically shoved in their faces.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but this is exactly why we need to be more active in debunking pseudoarchaeology, even if it’s just a one off post on a professional blog, or a whole channel dedicated to it. Also, we need to become more comfortable as a profession at dealing with non-academics and the public. I’ll stop here…for now…