I can’t quite believe that we’re doing the rounds of You’ve Got Blog again. But ever since diveintomark.org linked to it, I’ve been getting a new batch of referrals coming through to plasticbag.org – presumably from people who haven’t read it before. The reason I’m going to put my boot in again is because I still think it sits like a kind of poisonous lump of spite in the middle of webloggery and it really needs to be addressed. It takes many things that are obvious and have always been obvious and casts them in the most negative light possible, and at the same time it makes some assertions that are just plain ludicrous and can be proven to be wrong.
Joe calls this statement evidence of the incestuous nature of weblogging: “The other people who have blogs… read your blog, and if they like it they blog your blog on their own blog.” He digs at this statement as if it were evidence for insularity, disconnection, power-mongery – playground politics, essentially. But what he’s pointing out is a wonder of weblogging, not a failing of them. The reason weblogging has spread so far and so fast is because people who read them end up starting them. Weblogs are a viral medium of expression, spread by contact with webloggers. In fact, the worst case scenario for weblogging would be if it had become just another medium for some privileged well-paid people to talk to the general public. Everyone who likes weblogs should have one of their own. That’s the whole point.
“Counterblogging fails the test of novelty two ways: The links aren’t fresh (they’ve been traded back and forth like saliva in a kiss) and no new events from bloggers’ real lives are depicted.” Again the assumption is that each weblog is a micro-publishing empire in and of itself – designed to communicate only to non-webloggers. But one of the strengths of weblogging is that each weblog can act as part of a massive, distributed multi-threaded conversation that goes on all around the web. And as to links not being fresh – well people choose what they link to – no one is coerced – and the more the link is posted, the more the community indicates that the link is important. This importance is almost a kind of aggregated voting – which is helping Google help to get ‘important’ or pertinent articles seen more widely and read by more people. It’s not ideal yet, but it’s really getting there. That’s the whole point.
Joe says about the A-list: “Finally, independent confirmation of an obvious fact that is self-servingly denied by the Weblog aristocracy itself: Despite no appreciable difference in the “thoughtfulness” of their respective Web criticism, some Webloggers are superstars.” Since when was it news that some weblogs get more traffic than others? Some sites get read more than others because people enjoy reading them, because they’re consistent, because the people who write them have a special insight into what’s going on in the world around them, because they’ve been around longest. Whatever. There is no accounting for this interest, except by saying that people are interested. This is obvious. What’s also true is that if you do something good or great or write well or are particularly interesting then anyone can get people interested. And because of the increasing size of the weblog community (or communities) there are ever more people to become interested as well.
Joe says about the ‘publicity stunt’ of the little-girl-on-a-bicycle, “That clearly was not the intent, but the effect was the same, highlighting the incestuousness and insularity of the crème-de-la-blogging-crème.” He says, “The girl-on-a-bike prank was the rankest example yet of the mutual admiration society of the Weblog intelligentsia, deploying multiple identical coded messages … just because they could.” Without wishing to go into detail about the event – my part in which is still slightly embarrassing to me – that’s simply untrue. But the fact that people might use their sites to communicate stuff to their friends, families or loved ones – perhaps subtextually – doesn’t mean that there’s a cruelty or incestuousness behind the scenes. It might be possible to argue that at certain times certain webloggers have had significant influence, but most webloggers seem to become pretty immune to influence after a while. Independent people choose to post and do whatsoever they wish. And quite right too.
Joe points out that most people write in order to be heard. Yes. I think to an extent that’s true. Most of us, in our daily lives, don’t really get listened to very much – not our opinions, not our beliefs. Weblogs give us a space to speak and be listened to. Some people will only be heard initially by a very few others. Some who have been around a while or have written something particularly interesting, insightful or entertaining will be heard by thousands. But writing to be heard isn’t the same thing as writing for an audience. Writing for an audience suggests you’re betraying yourself for popularity. Writing for the web should be – and I think mostly is – about allowing people to present themselves as honestly as they feel comfortable with. And seeing what kind of reaction they get…
Next point – Joe slightly later says that “If you’re not an A-list blogger, you will stay off that list forever.” This is simply untrue. Firstly it posits this weird clique of webloggers who everyone adores. Which is untrue. Which has never existed. But more importantly, if you look at lists of popular weblogs – the ones that are most linked is probably the best measure – you continually find that (among some of the old faithfuls) new ones have emerged, continue to emerge and reach prominence. Even diveintomark.org (which is fast becoming one of the web’s favourite reads) started a full year and a half after plasticbag.org, nearly three years after Jason’s and a full seven months after Joe’s article. Weblogs come and weblogs go – some start well-read, some become well-read and many others cease being read at all.
Joe’s final point is that everyone who ran a weblog – and was A-list – has loads of cash and is heavily involved in the internet scene. Lucky bastards is heavily implied. But it’s simply untrue. When I started my site I was unemployed or temping as a secretarial assistant in London. When my site started getting popular I was working inputting film production credits into Quark documents on a freelance basis that could have ended at any time. I was responsible for all films that started with the letters P-Z. I did 4,000 films in all over six months. I earned little money, and when I finally got a permanent and stable job being an Editorial Assistant on timeout.com, I took a pay-cut. And I was far from the exception…
So there you are – an article that has a certain hideous potency in weblogging circles has little of substance within it. It’s one huge over-dramatisation of one man’s issues and irritations which has very little relationship to reality. The fact that it’s caused irritation and controversy is no reason to believe that it ‘hit close to the mark’ – in fact it’s irritating because it’s so profoundly not close to the mark. As an attempt to describe the varied people who undertake weblogging and the ways they interact with one another, it’s bitter, it lacks faith in human nature and it mischaracterises many well-intentioned people. Hopefully, this limited rebuttal will help limit some of its damage…