So despite being technically the first person to come to the fray (that’s right, scoop city), my weekend away has meant that I’m now more or less the last. So uh, apologies to the 80+ people who turned up yesterday expecting something actually interesting.
Handily, the gap does give me the opportunity to guage the general outlook on the thing, which outlook can be more or less summed up as “Yeah, cool”. The consensus seems to be that blogging is a personal thing, everyone does it for different reasons, and no one’s necessarily trying to beat on the walls of the literary and journalistic mainstream. Fine and dandy. There were some ill-advised, feet-first responses from the kind of people who use words like “blogosphere” without cracking a smile, but that’s just bruised idealism, and in all fairness the technology wouldn’t exist without the Interlifeweb Beta 2.0 Release Candidate 4 evangelists so I’m prepared to look the other way any time they start taking themselves a mite seriously.
Which is not to say that we should just buy into the sermons. We’re told that a plurality of voices and a free marketplace of ideas and all that assorted et ceteration is causing pure liquid democracy to ooze out of every cranny in the gaff, but the aggregate level of context-hatin’, knee-jerkin’ self-righteousness among Serious Bloggers is enough to make the Daily Mail blush. Online discussions aren’t about considered debate or meticulous research, they’re about grabbing four words out of the comment above you, inventing some random connections between them, and then taking this new and improved comment personally. It’s about taking the worst qualities of four year olds and brick walls and then beating people in the face with them.
Back to the post in question. Some people took issue with Rosie’s assertion that some of the Irish blogging A-list are “shit-awful writers,” insisting that this was just her being a snob and stuck-up and too impressed with her own subjective judgement. Fellas: no. You’re wrong, and I have the ivory tower education to prove it. Put it this way - by your logic, Cecelia Ahern and Dan Brown are the most awesome and great writers in the world. If they had babies, they’d be in the shape of Nobel prize medals. But objectively speaking, they are bad manipulators of language whose novels are a great big slapstick orgy of clichés and mixed metaphors and lazy plots, and sure their content might be tons of fun if you’re in the right frame of mind but please in the name of all that’s holy don’t try to pretend that their merit as writers is just a matter of opinion.
Well. I haven’t slept in five days so I’ll leave you with the charming spectacle of a murderous gimp doing the funky chicken. Good night e’body.
I was there for some of the educatin’ - I didn’t see any Ivory tower…
Speaking of knee-jerk reactions, on with the comment:
Rosie is right, some of the blogging ‘A-list’ (is there such a thing?) are not great writers. But that isn’t what blogs are about - it’s a free, non-discriminatory, democratic platform for any old joe to slick his hook and shoot the breeze.
Very few bloggers are going to be a pulitzer prize winning journalists, nobel prize winning writers or anything like them.
There are plenty of folks out there who enjoy Cecilia Ahern, Dan Brown and their shiny babies - and if that’s what they’re into well let ‘em get on with it. The same applies for blogging really, read what you like and drop a comment or two if you disagree.
> Very few bloggers are going to be a pulitzer prize winning journalists, nobel prize winning writers or anything like them.
And nor do they want to be. I’m delighted so many people are writing regularly because I think it’s a healthy thing to do, so I’m approximately a million miles from taking issue with the bloggers themselves. It does however annoy me how relentlessly serious some parties are about the whole business of blogging, about how it’s a revolution and we don’t need no gad-damn professionals and so on and so forth. It’s a minority view, but they’re a loud minority.
Speaking of not winning a nobel prize, feel free to fix the typos in the comment (and subsequent quote). I can’t even claim it as a lazy Monday mistake, or can I?
> how it’s a revolution and we don’t need no gad-damn professionals and so on and so forth. It’s a minority view, but they’re a loud minority.
Who holds that opinion??
I dunno, Jimbo Wales?
I’m not noticing it being particularly typoriffic. You big sensitive gombeen.