Year: 2002

I don’t hold Neil McIntosh fully accountable for the concept I’m only prepared to refer to as ‘a bloody stupid idea‘ (and I advise you to do the same). Neil suggested on a publically available mailing-list that when I suggested that the Guardian’s motivations for a weblogging award might not be entirely altruistic that they were much more likely to generate traffic for webloggers than the other way. He also thinks (as I do not) that webloggers won’t prostitute themselves for attention and that the event is rather like the Guardian’s first book award. I have replied as follows:

“Thanks for replying so thoughtfully Neil.”

“Before I start, I’m going to state right off that when I talk about weblogging, I’m generally talking about the most common kind of weblog – there’s a bit of their life in there, a bit of their interests, a few links, some thoughts or monologues etc. I think most of it applies to varying extents to the other things that people do as well, but maybe not all…”

“Taking your last post first, I think there is a sizable difference between the first books prize and this – in that the authors in the first books prize are professional writers who write both for art’s sake and for money. They are, in a sense, already prostitutes, already ‘in it for the money’. That’s fine, we all have to make a living!”

“But this simply isn’t the case for the vast majority of webloggers, who are doing it out of love, out of having a space to express themselves – and often a place to put their lives out in the open. In the process these people are often exposing themselves in quite significant ways. There seems to me something profoundly wrong with asking people to compete in such an environment. At some level it’s inevitably a competition of self-exposure – it’s asking people to take the space that they’ve used to talk openly and honestly about their thoughts and their interests and often their lives not because it’s a valuable and profound space for them to communicate, but to compete against their friends for money!”

“Obviously there’s also an aspect which is about popularity, and being read and your opinions listened to as well. But if you look at the opinions that matter to people, it’s mostly not celebrities or media figures. In many ways, for a large number of people, they’re almost the enemy! They’re relics from the past where for the most part we are kind of the future – the future where everybody is a superhero! Where we all get a slice of the cake, a bite of the cherry. And more importantly, there’s a real feeling that these people most often don’t understand what we’re doing anyway! We’ve seen people like this for years – it’s all PR blurb and airbrushed skin. I don’t think that’s what the weblogging publishing revolution is about! Make them start their own weblogs! (Jen excepted, she’s so blog)”

“I suppose what it comes down to is this sense of WHAT IS A WEBLOG FOR? When you talk about book prizes – then you’re really talking about a product that is made for the consumption of audiences – press is important because you sell more copies, good reviews are fundamental because you sell more copies, prizes are good because they allow you to make a living. The book itself is something created for the people who are going to buy it. But significantly at least one aspect of running a weblog is to have a place for yourself, that means something to you. It’s a place that’s not supposed to be for sale.”

“If you asked people “How do you feel when you lie about your life on your weblog”, you’ll probably some really mixed answers, but a decent number of them will express that this is something that makes people feel really uncomfortable and untrue to themselves. There’s a bit of a confessional in it, there’s a bit of a the personal diary in it, there’s a bit which is about having an artifact of your life and thoughts which you can keep with you.”

“This feels to me too much like selling out, too much like old trees. You say it’s the choice of the blogger themselves, but is it really? Who can turn down the possibility of winning £1000 for what they do everyday anyway? And of course that’s going to affect how people post. Did you not watch the Bloggies at all? Everyone played up to their audiences. It was almost the point!”

“Anyway – I’m getting a bit heated now, and I have so much work to do that I’m going to back off now. But I would like to say that I’ve already had conversations with people yesterday and today who 1) don’t understand how something like this can even be judged, 2) don’t find the idea of the competition particularly palatable or in the spirit of why they took up – or continue to do – weblogging but 3) feel rather disgusted with themselves that they probably will enter, because the potential exposure is too irresistible and the potential financial reward vaguely intoxicating. It’s also already drawn out the competitive instincts in a few people too – seriously – you may not believe it, but it’s evident behind the scenes.”

“I hope that’s all vaguely clear and not too lunatic or nuts. Obviously I’m not talking for anyone but myself and everything I’m describing could just be my interpretation of the conversations I’ve been having. Everyone else may very well disagree with every single thing I’ve said.”

“PS. You’re absolutely right – the Guardian has done lots to promote weblogs, which I think we’re all – or at least those of us who’ve been mentioned in them :o) – are profoundly grateful. And clearly no individual weblog is going to double the traffic to the Guardian’s weblog or to that part of the site. But I think you’re being overly demure when you say that this will send substantially more traffic to the weblogs concerned than it’ll receive itself. I think we can expect this to be metafiltered, probably slashdotted, potentially b3ta‘d (which I believe to my horror has tens of thousands of e-mail subscribers and is one of the most highly trafficed websites in the country now) – quite apart from the sheer number of links it’ll get on weblogs.”

“For good or ill – intentionally or unintentionally – this will generate a substantial amount of traffic for the Guardian’s site… It may not have been a motive, but I think I could pretty much guarantee that you couldn’t buy the number of page impressions you’ll get out of this by paying for £2000 of banner ads!”