Bloggers: The New Losers

October 5th, 2007

BlogsI’ll just mention that I saw two things on the Internets that basically voice the general distaste for bloggers in general. The term “blogosphere” is considered the most hated technology word, and “blog” itself was number three.

First, a link to an article called Blogging is Dumb, Stupid, and Successful showed up on Digg. There are quite a few blog haters on Digg (sometimes with good reason) but the comments left by Diggers beneath the link was enough to get any blogger down.

Like a dog that runs around biting its own tail, is blogging about blogging like the proverbial coffee table book about coffee tables?

The one thing I can’t stand… bloggers blogging about blogging. Seriously, if that’s all you can do, then please throw your computer out the window now.

Then I took a gander at a Guy Kawasaki profile that contained a truly amusing gem (that hopefully is tongue in cheek):

“I have a very low opinion of the blogosphere,” Kawasaki said. “I think it is made up of about 250,000 people who are mostly 45-year-old men who live with their mother and have dead cats in their refrigerators.”

Hmmm. Well, I have two live cats, does that count?

The last straw was yesterday when Techmeme, tech blog aggregator of choice, was called a “cess-pool” by old-school blogger Dave Winer. If bloggers are starting to consider other blogger’s work nothing but crap, what hope is there?

Blogrolls of toilet paper, here we come. It may be time for a long blog vacation.

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Viewing 8 Comments

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    I really hope that the comment about a long blog vacation was meant seriously.

    For the past little while I have been feeling that blogging is reaching a bit of a crossroads. With the dipsy-doodle A-Listers constantly flitting between every new shiney thing that comes along and proclaiming what ever the hot item of the mement as the next best thing it is going to leave a lot of open territory for those of us bloggers who take what we are doing seriously

    The A-list bunch kind of remind me of the paparattzi [sp?] always on the hunt for the hottest pic and the coolest people to be seen with but very rarely do they stick around to do the serious work,

    so Jason .. regardless of the crap that is being spewed by supposed big boys of the blogging world in order to try and hang on to their positions at the top ... don't let it get you down or doubt what you and other hard working bloggers are doing. We just have to keep slugging away because our time will come - after all there are always new shiny things around the corner to distract the big fish in the pond.

    p.s. .. the notify by email option isn't working
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    ooppss .. first line .. was = wasn't .. sorry
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    Heh - yeah I was being rather sarcastic in my post regarding the "blog vacation" which doesn't read too well. I must say you're right about the crossroads. Over the past few weeks, for better or worse, I've been drifting away from jumping on the latest technology memes. This post was sort of a wakeup to myself really, a lot of people out there could care less what's going on in the blog world - therefore I should just write about what I enjoy and stop contemplating the ramifications of the leaderboard...
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    Yeah, what Steven said. (also, "mement." that's clever)

    1) Eff digg. No one should take anything they read there as a sign of any widespread opinion. If the world ran on the whims of digg, it would quickly collapse into a pit of nihilism. If blogging is so anathema to digg, why are half the top stories links to a self-publisher (aka blogger)?

    2) Blogging ain't going anywhere. Those negative comments seem to come from people who seem to think that all bloggers are navel-gazing tech pundits and that "the blogosphere" stops where the last comment about linux/apple/seo/google/gadgetX is written. The subject matter of the online self publisher is far more diverse in topic, interesting in thought and plentiful in knowledge than the haters seem to be capable of grasping.

    My NetNewsWire routinely has an unread count in the thousands there's so much good stuff out there, most of which i'll never actually get to read.

    There are plenty of excellent "news style" blogs as well as personality blogs, this one included. If you enjoy what you're doing and have readers who appreciate your knowledge and perspective, then pay no attention to the negativists, they're not the ones reading you anyway.

    Their opinions certainly won't keep me from writing.
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    I get my news from various sources... TV, cable (not quite the same), radio, newspaper, and blogs.

    Yet I don't get any of them from the TV-o-sphere, the cablesphere, radiosphere, nor the newpaper-o-sphere.

    More to the point, neither do I find any TV, cable, radio, or newspaper quoting things like "MSM" or "blogosphere". When CNN discusses something that was put in either the New York Times or Fox Cable, they pretty much attribute it as such.

    It's only the "blogosphere" that cares about "MSM" and itself.

    And that's why _I_ absolutely hate the term "blogosphere". (And yes, put in that context bloggers can get full of themselves sometimes.)
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    Tunequest, I'll keep persisting with the personal side - I think that's the spot I'm finding most rewarding - writing about stuff I find amusing or cool and the audience can take it or leave it.

    DaveD, good point on the strangeness of the world blogosphere - where did that term come from?
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    Whatever. I try to just ignore the haters and keep blogging...
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    Just try and remember who you write for. If it's you, then it doesn't matter what the A-List, B-List, or anybody else says. Does blogging serve a purpose for you? If it does, then keep going, period.

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