Through the creative and passionate voice of 22-year old, readers are welcomed onto the blog called 18, run by college student Sabhanaz Rashid Diya. This blog is used as a creative source to post poems, photos, ‘articles of her life’, and her opinions on current issues facing the world. This blog shows the mind of a young student starving to get her thoughts and words out into the world. She sometimes is very thoughtful in her writings, while other times she uses the platform as a space for her to spout out randomness to clear her mind. She says about herself, “I am known for serious and angry post-modern monologues.” While she describes herself as an angsty youth with an aversion to pink and a desire to jump into the depths of the unknown, she has a sensitive side to her that she has expressed through writing since the age of nine. She writes stories of herself, of a child she lost, of difficult times in her life, and other situations in which readers can find parts of themselves in. She analysis social norms and issues, such as the judgment she feels on airplanes just because of her race/ethnicity, artists ideals and works, restraints of freedom of speech in media and many more. Her blog is a world view coming from someone as normal as the rest of us, someone that has had life experiences, and sees the world through the same eyes as many of her readers have.
Many of Diya’s articles, especially the ones she writes about the chapters of her life are somewhat vague. She wrote an article about a child she lost, however she does not give any background information into the loss of the child, she stays within the emotional realm of the situation. What would be her specific reasoning behind this? Many readers would like to get that deeper understanding into what happened to this lost child, as well as the emotional impact and her opinions on it. She has a heavy focus on art throughout all of her blog. What ways is art positively or negatively affecting Bangladesh as a whole? How is she involved in art in her country outside of this blog? She has began to write children stories, which is her step into reaching into the physical artistic world. Does she have a connection with children because she lost one herself, or has the connection always been there? She offers her blog in English, does this mean her objective is to reach people outside of Bangladesh as well as the select citizen within the country that can read English? What would be the benefit to her to write this blog in English? Understanding these questions would provide a brighter light into the mind of the author and her artistic vision for the site.