at the end of my last comment on this thread, i demonstrated a profound and astonishing ability to state the obvious: atrios and markos attained their A list status because _everyone_ links to them. A list blogs have a strong tendency to link only to each other. however, the A list pioneers did not make themselves into A listers. they got where they are because lesser known bloggers linked to them in increasing numbers.
while A listers individually have the power to be kingmakers, the multitude of lesser known blogs hasn't lost its ability to do the same. standing outside the warm glow of the A list circle jerk and crying because the kool kidz won't invite you to their parties is the fastest way to get labeled a whiny loser whether it's true or not. it only increases the A list aura because kool kidz get to be kool kidz only because of all the people pining away for their approval and attention. if no one gave a crap, or if most people managed to pretend that they didn't, the kool kidz would magically transform into dorks with unjustifiably large egos.
the crowd outside the A list circle is bigger and more diverse than the A list. if you're complaining that the A listers slammed the door shut behind them, stop. just stop it. haul your butt over to your computer and start exploring the vast territory of liberal blogs with fewer than three thousand visitors a day and LINK to them on your OWN blog and encourage others to do the same instead of wondering why atrios and markos aren't doing all of this work for the good of the liberal blogosphere.
not that y'all who read here don't do this already. but the rest of you. who...um, aren't reading this. but, you should be. so there.
16 comments:
at the end of my last comment on this thread, i demonstrated a profound and astonishing ability to state the obvious: atrios and markos attained their A list status because _everyone_ links to them. A list blogs have a strong tendency to link only to each other. however, the A list pioneers did not make themselves into A listers. they got where they are because lesser known bloggers linked to them in increasing numbers.
OMG, Linkage is Blogging Capital!
(the funny thing is that I have dkos linked on my blog, despite the fact that if he dies before me, he sure ain't gonna stay buried for too long, some good people blog at dkos though, not many, and they get drowned out by the unironic "kossacks" but you know...)
I always wondered why all the people they pissed off didn't just delink and take themselves elsewhere. It really is obvious that they are A-listers because of link popularity so the way to bring 'em down is by delinking and ignoring them. Instead these people keep banging their heads against the wall trying to get the A-listers' attention.
The only time I ever read anything on a big mainstream blog is if one of the bloggers I read regularly links to a post there. And you've seen my blogroll, those are the ones I read regularly. No Atrios, no Kos, no MyDD, no FDL, etc.
Yes! I was thinking this exact same thing the other day, complete with the high school analogy! There are way more of us little blogs, and WE rule the blogging universe. WE make our own cool club! Plus, if you ever notice, a lot of those A-list bloggers all tend to post about the same thing. The rest of us are much more varied and interesting. You don't see them posting a list of hot Buffy clips!
In all fairness, Kos and Atrios got to where they are because they were among the first blogs around. Plus, at least at first Kos got from Democratic Underground, whose own popularity derives from its admins' protesting of Bush's inauguration with a banner with their URL on it in front of MSNBC's cameras.
But yeah, the rest of the criticism is spot on. As I started saying a few days before I shut down Abstract Nonsense, the best places on the sphere are places with a level of traffic hardly higher than mine (at the time, I got 1,000 hits a day). It's true even for blogospheric subcultures: A Bird and a Bottle is far better than Pandagon, despite having a traffic level lower by about two orders of magnitude.
sorry to hear you shut down, AL. take care.
What! Alon, when did you shut down your blog? We've disagreed about A LOT in the past but there's no denying that I did enjoy coming to your blog from time to time and seeing what you had to say. I hope that you're just taking a little break and will return to blogging eventually.
Yeah, I never did link to those big sites. It just seemed like stating the obvious to me. Everyone would eventually hear about those blogs, so I'd rather feature all the ones that I liked that not enough people know about. Speaking of which, I just realized that I don't have YOU on my blogroll Belle. I think when blogger conked out on me and I lost my links, I forgot to add you back in.
Anyway, I always love seeing new bloggers because it seems that what motivates some people to start blogs is the fact that they don't see the issues they are interested in being covered by others. So you get a nice influx of new kinds of material from the newbie bloggers that you just won't see in the A-listers.
I shut it down because of a growing realization it was politically irrelevant. Daily Kos is influencing politics; Firedoglake doesn't, let alone my own place. So as soon as it stopped being enjoyable and started being a drag on my life, I stopped. Girlfriends I fellate; bloggers who expect the same treatment I bite.
Huh. And here I was just looking at the argument that bloggers made the difference wrt Shaquanda Cotton. for example. of course, that's neither large scale nor -electoral- politics.
if one is only looking at the top/Big Important People, then yeah, most blogs are pretty irrelevant. That's not how I look at political blogging, however.
that said, if it's not enjoyable then it's not. sorry to hear it. peace.
I'm not talking just about electoral politics, either. The big stuff was obviously out of my reach, but so was the small stuff. Incidents like Shaquanda Cotton and Julie Amero's are good examples of how bloggers can collectively help things, it's true. But there are two complications for me.
First, I've never been good at working collectively about things, which is why I run into trouble on echo chambers all the time; Tom Head and I disagree with the Feministing line to about the same extent, though on different issues, but I've gotten into fights and been called a troll on those disagreements while he never has.
And second, I'm ill suited for that kind of blogging. I generally post about such an injustice once or twice and move on. I'm a lot better at issue blogging than at tracking news stories.
Who are Atrios and Markos and why should I know them? Do they like goats?
I keep a few of those guys on my blogrolls, but usually anything of import that I want to know comes here or to TGW or the General.
I just don't have time to go through all of the big big bloggers who are never going to visit my blog since I'm more about sneaking liberal ideas into people's heads without them realizing it.
*Just* for you belle, I have changed my blogger name. Also, I felt it was time to start exercising some of the regal power. Yep.
heh heh heh
Girlfriends I fellate; bloggers who expect the same treatment I bite.
I nominate the above for Best Quote Ever.
rosie: We All Like Goats. (sort of like All We Like Sheep, except...well anyway)
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