arc of time

i normally don’t comment on things. i certainly am NOT invigorated by debate and argument. i much prefer consensus or at least calm disagreement. the name-calling and yelling that passes for debate in much of society today is just not for me. in fact it is the main reason i absolutely REFUSE to post about politics on my blog as i have written about before.. i just don’t want to get sucked into it. it does nothing for me.

that being said i did find myself making a couple of comments on andisheh nouaree’s creative loafing pieceabout five local bloggers who matter, both on the piece itself and in a subsequent post written by the atlmalcontent about the post. really i wasn’t planning to jump in but in a moment of weakness found myself doing so.

first, let me say that unlike other bloggers, i am not upset that andy made a ‘list.’ i think lists are fun and andy’s profiles of the bloggers were informative and well-thought-out. i even covered the piece in the atlanta metblog in that vein.

it wasn’t until the defense posts started that i felt compelled to post.

see introducing the piece, andy decided to put up some personal opinion about the genre of personal blogging.

here is the full quote i am going to talk about –

Thanks to the ever-growing number of blogs in and around the city, the deepest, most personal thoughts of hundreds of people are now easily discoverable. They can be delivered to your computer desktop in the font of your choosing.

Instead of displacing the traditional news media, challenging the mainstream news and entertainment media’s backside – or foisting great-but-previously-undiscovered talents on the city – blogging in Atlanta is, by and large, a medium for self-expression.

At its best, self-expressive blogging connects friends and family members who are either too busy, or too distant, to see each other as often as they’d like. Personal blogging brings strangers together in unexpected ways.

Last year, when I posted on my personal blog about a fire that gutted my neighbor’s house, I received donations of clothes for their children and gift cards worth several hundred dollars, from several people I’d met once at a bloggers’ happy hour, and from one person I’d never met or spoken to.

At its worst, self-expressive blogging is a digital speculum that allows neurotic, self-obsessed people to cram their heads even farther up their own asses. I must have been born just after the Reveal Everything Online gene started appearing in every newborn American baby, because for the life of me, I cannot comprehend what drives so many local bloggers to “share” intimate and mundane information about their dysfunctional family relationships, their dysfunctional romantic relationships, the meals they’ve just eaten, and in one instance, a lost-but-not-forgotten foreskin. At times, it can feel like the only traditional news-media platform the Atlanta blogosphere is ready to replace is “The Maury Povich Show.”

Though the Atlanta blogosphere is dim, there are enough bright lights out there for you to waste a good portion of any workday.

okay, first off, obviously andy doesn’t trash the whole genre of personal blogging. he certainly recognizes its use and power as a medium to keep people up-to-date on their friends and loved ones, so i won’t make the criticism that he just attacks the genre, when he doesn’t.

but obviously he has some problems with the genre too. who can forget the paragraph -

At its worst, self-expressive blogging is a digital speculum that allows neurotic, self-obsessed people to cram their heads even farther up their own asses. I must have been born just after the Reveal Everything Online gene started appearing in every newborn American baby, because for the life of me, I cannot comprehend what drives so many local bloggers to “share” intimate and mundane information about their dysfunctional family relationships, their dysfunctional romantic relationships, the meals they’ve just eaten, and in one instance, a lost-but-not-forgotten foreskin. At times, it can feel like the only traditional news-media platform the Atlanta blogosphere is ready to replace is “The Maury Povich Show.”

so my points here are two. first, in rushing to andy’s defense, both in the comments on the piece in the case of cl editor ken edlestien, and on his own blog in the case of the atlmalcontent seem to imply that andy is offering some sort of well-formed criticism of the blogs that he doesn’t like.

i cannot agree with that and i am trying to figure out how it is. seriously, referring to people as having ‘heads up their asses’ and being candidates for the maury povich show isn’t criticism. there are no examples cited simply names called.

in his comments edelstein writes -

As a very constructive critic, he offered his informed opinion and argument as well as positive examples. It wasn’t intended to anger anyone (or to slight anyone by failing to feature their blog). It was intended to inform constructively and to offer some offer some (I hope) intelligent observations.

i would agree with that if that was what he had done. but it wasn’t. andy just callled a bunch of names and then moved on to his list.

in defending him on his post the atlmalcontent writes –

Addressing the second point first — taste is not always subjective. If you like PT Cruisers, or think Lindsay Lohan rocks, that’s certainly your prerogative. Just as it’s mine to say you have crappy taste. That’s a big problem in our PC society: no judgments, no criticism. I encountered this at film school; our professors were way too positive. No matter how listless the script, we were showered with adulation. Better to tell me “your script is shit” than have me waste nine months on yet another pointless inside Hollywoood parable.

once again, i completely agree. but just saying pt cruisers suck, or you’re an idiot is not criticism of the well-formed or constructive type. it is just name calling and kinda pointless for any reason other than picking a fight. now i also believe that andy and the editors of creative loafing have every right to do this, but they should expect to be called out for it when they try to label somethins as well-formed criticism when it isn’t.

by the way, for the uninitiated, the foreskin reference in andy’s piece is a direct shot in the ongoing blogfight with duane moody.

here is my second point on this and then i am done. i really feel andy did the bloggers he profiled and the rest of his otherwise well written piece a disservice by putting that stuff in there. basically, he ensured that would become the focus and NOT the people he was profiling.

my opinion is that if andy had really desired to write a piece on the state of atlanta blogging he should have done that with a full piece on that subject. of course not all agree with me, in fact the atlmalcontent wrote a post specifically attacking this piece of criticism on the article. of course i disagree with this and with the characterization in his post. it’s not that we should never be critical, of course we should, i just don’t understand how the criticism did anything to advance the point or purpose of this article.

so that’s my $.02.

for what it’s worth, i like both andy and the atlmalcontent and recommend their stuff to anyone.

in the end this whole little kerfuffle probably matters about as much as a late september game between the cubs and the phillies is going to matter.