For their creators, blogs are a form of expression; a way of showing their identity and interests and even for promoting themselves. Recently, blogs turned to be a weapon in the hands of everyone who have the desire to exercise their freedom of speech. Millions of personal pages exist in the online community.

They can be almost anything their writers want: information sites, journals, discussion pages and many more. Additionally, the topics vary from general to specific.

However, who stands behind these personal webpages and what incites them to become part of the enormous bloggers family? Nowadays, everyone can initiate their own blogs, so it is not a surprise that these various online pages are continuously called a big part of “the Internet craze.” Bored housewives who share their secrets in the kitchen, enamored young girls expressing their disillusionment with their “kindred souls,” men obsessed by the ideals of masculinity — these are only a minute part of the blog authors in the Internet space. What reduces these enthusiasts to a common denominator is their desire to express themselves and to be noticed by others.

Blogs become virtual friends to people, because many of them choose to write up their personal stories and to publish them as a way of taking the burden off their shoulders. Instead of taking the trip to the psychiatrist, perhaps, many have found a cheaper method of solving their inner problems. Blogs have turned out to be the perfect alternative for those who feel they were always misunderstood by the physical world around them.

Moreover, as a society bathed in technology, our connection with the virtual space is much stronger than our relationship with the people surrounding us. That is why it is sometimes easier for us to confide our secrets to cyberspace and millions of unknown readers than to our relatives and friends.

Depending on their main goals, bloggers can be divided into three groups: first – those who want to share their experiences (such as For the Love of Cooking), second – those who want to find understanding  (e.g A Mom, a Blog, and the Life In Between), and third – those who are looking for a place to express themselves and to exercise their rights (like ……shot by both sides).

In the past years, the idea of blogs as business cards and even as curricula vitae (CVs) has attained popularity. Many job seekers use their personal pages as a source of useful information for their prospective employers. On the other hand, managers consider blogs as a way to learn more about the personality of their future workers because it is believed that people unveil their inner world on their own homepages. But no one can be sure that blogs are not just masks behind which men and women hide the things they don’t want to show.

Definitely, blogs have become an integral part of our lives and culture. The first blog ever created was Justin Hall’s personal homepage links.net in the not so distant year of 1994 while he was a student at Swarthmore College. However, it was not until 1999 when the term “blog’’ was used for the first time. Nowadays, there are 70 million Worldpress blogs and 39 million Tumblr blogs worldwide, which are only a small part of the vast sea of online personal pages through other networks.

Blogs serve society. They benefit their authors as well as the readers who visit them. For some people they will always be the confidant they never managed to find in real life.

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Ernie and Bert will not be getting married, as Sesame Street denied the petition calling for the marriage once again. There is no doubt they will not get romantically involved to each other or anyone else.

This demand has become a big bomb on the internet in the last few years. Sesame Street denied it and issued this statement on their Facebook page.

Sesame Street keeps trying to convince the audience that Bert and Ernie are just best friends. They developed such characters to teach preschoolers that people can be close friends even they are very different from themselves. These characters have feelings and many human traits but they do not have a sexual orientation

Bloggers are looking for Sesame Street to accept a relationship between Bert and Ernie. In June 2010, after a suspicious tweet sent from the Sesame Street Twitter account from Bert saying that his Mohawk was more “mo” tan “hawk,” Sesame street fans tried to convince other bloggers that was a sort of coded acknowledgment of their relationship.

“We’ve always reached out to a variety of actors and athletes and celebrities to appear on the show, and our programming has always appealed to adults as much as children,” Sesame Street said.

Gay marriage became legal in New York last June; therefore the numbers of states in America legalizing gay marriage are increasing.  That also explains why over 900 people online think the two puppets should get married.

Lair Scott started the petition, sending a letter to the makers of Sesame Street.

“In this horrific age of LGBT kids taking their own lives, they need to know that they ARE BEAUTIFUL and their lives are worth living,” Lair Scott said. He asks for tolerance and kindness. He wants to let every kid know that no matter what they will be beautiful in any way and suicide is not the escape from any bully.

He claims to make bullies know that homophobia will be never okay. He thinks letting Bert and Ernie get married won’t be disrespectful or cruel. “Let us teach tolerance of those that are different. Let Sesame Street and PBS Kids be a big part in saving many worthy lives,” he said.

This petition follows the message of the “It Gets Better” project founded in 2010 following the suicides of a number of young gay men. There have been a lot of different reactions. New York Daily News said in an editorial:

“Folks who want a gay marriage for Bert and Ernie of ‘Sesame Street’ need to get over themselves,” they explained that young children from 2 to 4 don’t need to get involved in passions of adults.

Twitter is still buzzing with reactions. Even though  many are encouraging the dream wedding, others are laughing about it and claiming other famous characters to be first, such Batman and Robin or Yogi Bear and Boo Boo.

Sesame Street started in 1969 and since then they have taken on difficult issues and topics to educate young children, such as divorce, racism, and real life disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the 9-11.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/waltherfamily/

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