[LEMONS] 6.10.2002
New York Times Article on the Blogger Rift
"It's like being the punk-rock fan who was into punk rock before everyone else" I understand this sentiment, perfectly, and I understand the resentment. For the record, I began keeping a blog (@ netbelly.com) with Dave and Dave in late 99 or early 2000. Moved onto blogging @ Savenapster.net, and wound up here. I'm also a journalist. I'm also a Web pro. And I'm old school, my first Web paycheck came back in 1996, when a lot of today's bloggers were considering getting an AOL account because they'd heard something about this email thingie and gee wasn't that "You've Got Mail" movie just dreamy? I've been Web publishing, professionally and personally, since not long after the Web itself was created. Let me put it this way, when I began farting around with the Web, my big question was if it were possible to be employed full-time writing for it. I say this only because I feel that it qualifies me to speak to this issue (if only somewhat).Jason Kottke is the ultimate weblogger. He is, in fact, probably my favorite weblogger. He's astute, he's a great writer, he includes personal tidbits without getting too haircutty. I've exchanged an email here and there with him. He's nice, he's sharp, he is, by all accounts, a good guy. I'd love to keep a weblog as good as his. Jason, you're the bomb. Likewise, Ken Layne is a thug. Tabloid.net was already old school when I started working with Ken at GettingIt.com, where I edited some of his articles and got to know him via the electronet marvel of email. He is, likewise, a standup guy. He's a great writer, he's sharp, he's opinionated. I wish I were half the writer he is. Ken, thanks for keeping it real, yo.
But I can see both sides of the argument. The warbloggers, for the most part, have no sense of history or appreciation for the medium they have entered. Since most journalists were apparantly ignorant of blogs--and sure as hell weren't keeping them in the numbers they now do--before 09/11, the "warblog" was their first experience with the, er, blogosphere (to use a completely gay term). Likewise, I think most of the older bloggers are pissed about the warbloggers for the attention they have brought to weblogging, and the misperceptions of the phenomena warbloggers have perpetuated--including the perception that weblogs are in any way new. But neither side is at fault, per se. It's just tat one side looks at the other as uncouth philistine interlopers, while the other side sees the first as a bunch of snooty intellectual elitists. And both are prone to telling each other such with great fervor.
Fellas.
Can't we all just get along?
- l i n k -
