Does Anyone Remember Blogging?
January 7th, 2011Seven Years is a Long Time to Put Off a Funeral
I see Dennis the Peasant has quit blogging.
He says political blogging has become boring, and:
Six years ago, the political blogosphere was not dominated by the money and resources of mainstream media and professional political advocacy groups. Now it is. The political blogosphere has now acquired all of the defects (and none of the virtues) of mainsteam and advocacy media. With money has come self-censorship and intellectual dishonesty.
Wow, wasn’t I here in 2007? I talked about this when Pajamas Media popped up. Let’s see. Wikipedia says that was 2004. I’m farther ahead of my time than I realized.
People like Dennis and me spelled out what would happen, and it all came true, and the lemmings and backslappers called us traitors.
Blogging is dead. Or maybe it has come back to life. Political blogs launched by genuine grassroots nobodies got big ten or eleven years ago, and they were great because they were not run by journalists, most of whom are lazy and stupid. Then Big Media noticed the blogosphere, and they started pumping money into it. We ended up with websites that were not really blogs. Chris Matthews pretends to blog. Jake Tapper. Greta Van Susteren. And they’re not the worst examples; at least they have things to say. You can probably find blog-style sites featuring Courtney Friel and and Soledad O’Brien, if you look. Cheesecake and cotton candy masquerade as entrees.
Corporations put up websites, and they force their TV meat puppets to do something meat puppets were never designed to do: write original material. Meat puppets read. They are not built to write. The circuitry is not present.
A few outsiders made it into the inner circle, and they generally became insiders. They were so excited about being recognized, and so afraid of being kicked out, they became what they originally arose to counter. Ho hum. Why read that crap? Turn on CNN, and you’ll get the same spin.
I say blogging may have come back to life, because now that we are insignificant again, blogs may become what they were intended to be: personal, truthful websites written by people who are beholden to no one.
The haves always keep the have-nots down. For a while, the have-nots did okay on the Internet. Now the haves are back in charge. The natural order of the universe has been restored.
Blogging is utterly unimportant now. Truthlaidbear should label us all microbes or maybe viruses or prions. From a global standpoint, what we do is completely worthless. It has no impact. Big Media is safe from us again. Their chosen Internet darlings (recognizable for their sheep-humbling team spirit and complete lack of talent) may get a foot in the door once in a while–they may get occasional chances to bask and kowtow in the glow of Greg Gutfeld’s stagnant, Sisyphean insignificance, or they may be mentioned very briefly on Fox–but they won’t make a living, and the rest of us are permanently locked out of the VIP room.
I don’t think we’ll see another outsider opportunity again, until bandwidth gets so cheap you can have your own hour-long Internet TV show, complete with callers and chat. Nowlive tried to do that, but it failed because there was no way to make the finances work.
Dennis made the right choice. These days, it’s all downside and no reward.
January 7th, 2011 at 4:00 PM
Meaningless, meaningless. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
January 7th, 2011 at 5:31 PM
“Blogging is utterly unimportant now.”
I know. Isn’t it great? There are those of us who never even wanted to be in the VIP room. Power is a trap. I got close to that sort of “ooh, I’m in the IN crowd” thing back in my pre-internet life, and it just bored me.
I hardly ever write about politics these days. What’s the point? I’d just be repeating myself. I haven’t changed. I’ve said all I have to say about it, which wasn’t much. I have other interests. So now I have a few readers instead of… a few more readers. That’s fine with me.
January 7th, 2011 at 6:40 PM
Ecclesiastes 5:1-2
1 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a word before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.
2 For a dream cometh through a multitude of business; and a fool’s voice through a multitude of words.
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10:2 gives us some political advice:
A wise man’s understanding is at his right hand; but a fool’s understanding at his left.
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I miss some of the graphic humor I once did, especially that which tweaked the nose of the Religion of Peace™.
January 8th, 2011 at 1:16 PM
Well, this is the only blog I regularly read (TOR), and I was a regular reader of HOI. I am also a person who has bought at least two of your books and enjoyed them. I thought the internet video feed idea that you were experimenting with a while back was a good one but I always seemed to miss the podcasts. I would submit that blogs such as yours have a quiet, thoughtful and personal influence on some people, myself included. Some bloggers are better than others and I will remain a fan for as long as you choose to continue TOR (or a future version). I hope you keep at it; you have things to say and you say them well. I do miss the Marvin and Maynard posts though. Happy New Year, Mr. Graham.
-Walt
January 8th, 2011 at 3:42 PM
The truth is out there,,,,
January 8th, 2011 at 7:30 PM
How dare you impugn the fabulous denizens of Blogistan!
all true
all correct
and a large part of the reason I have ceased to put anything on my front page but art bible and music for almost 2 years now
the Big Blahh Gahhhz
can keep Blogistan.
they deserve it
January 9th, 2011 at 10:47 AM
Hey, don’t you quit blogging. I am enriched by your writing.
January 10th, 2011 at 9:30 AM
I just spent an enlightening few minutes looking at Hotair.com, learning stuff about the Arizona shooting I wouldn’t have gotten from the news. Maybe hotair isn’t blogging, but eitherway, independent voices still matter.
January 10th, 2011 at 10:43 AM
Michelle Malkin is an insider, and she was an insider before she started blogging. Allahpundit has fifty times her talent, and he came from outside the inner circle. He never amounted to anything but a servant.
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Go outside and ask five people who Allahpundit is.
January 10th, 2011 at 12:54 PM
Regardless, I’m glad Allahpundit and Ed Morrisey are still doing their thing.
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:40 AM
Steve, a free-market guy like you knows that promising markets will draw private capital. Sort of like the Chevy Volt, but the exact opposite.
So if blogging works just as a genre, of course CNN would tell their people to start doing it. The people writing the copy might be communists, but Ted Turner’s not in business to lose money.
I guess I’m just not sure what a “true blogger” is looking for. I think Andrea’s got the right idea.
Soledad O’brien’s audience will probably check out her “blog”, while smaller players will have smaller, organically-grown audiences. It’s an entirely separate playing field; they don’t really occupy the same space in my head.
I, for one, found this blog here a few Google searches after the phrase “I grew up in the era of Norman Lear” popped in my head this morning and I started laughing hysterically.
If the fict-u-lizer would ever belch back to life, it would be much appreciated.