Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
“Is it a scary ride, Mommy? Will it go loop-de-loop and make me throw up?” “Let’s hope not, dear. If you get sick, we’ll just have to go home.”
Actually Shelley, the more I read you, the less I think of you a champion of people whose voices don’t get heard enough [women, “D-Listers”, whoever], and more as somebody complicit in making sure they stay that way.
Yes, I’m sure somebody like Seth takes comfort in your words [the writing of which, you obviously have a talent for], but I don’t think you’re doing him any real long-term favors, either. Pity.
Shelley Powers (comment316):
Hugh, I have a headache and I don’t speak ‘cryptic’. Explain your comment, please.
sounds like he’s saying it’s your fault more people don’t link to non-a-listers AND that you’re at least partially responsible for non-a-listers staying non-a-listers.
wow. hugh thinks you are Very. Powerful.
I wonder who started the “Shelley is this” and “Shelley is that” club?
hrmmm. It’s all so puzzling. I mean, I just can’t think of … OH! Oh yah. okay. I recall it’s early origins… okay.
So it’s good to broad brush stroke folks who have been blogging both shits AND giggles since 00 as ‘this way’ or ‘that way,’ is that it? Is that how cultosphere will keep on without having to look back at any valid points from those who make them uncomfortable? Or piss them off? Or who, as Scoble might say of a blogger who disagrees, “play the ad hominem card”?
Good job, Hugh. How Cluetrainian of you.
Trackback from Chris’ quips (oops, that’s Chip’s Quips) (comment318:
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Shelley Powers (comment320:
I had thought about doing another post, but I really am not feeling great tonight.
Jeneane, have you noticed that those who have benefited the most from this environment seem to be those who want to restrict it the most?
What did Mena Trott say that one time? I think that was shut up, too, wasn’t it?
“Sit down, shut up”
“You have to go to the conference before you can be critical of it”
Scoble’s assertion in comments about writing THE book on weblogging, and he can damn well define it as he wants, and no one else need bother
“You’re helping no one” — this one I’m assuming to be a variation of sit down and shut up.
The people who wrote the original posts and comments that touched all this off–Newsome, Seth, and Nick Carr–they weren’t saying that anyone had to change. They weren’t even writing angrily. They were just saying, that to write glowingly of this environment, that to say that every little boy and girl can grow up to be BoingBoing if they just write good enough, is a fallacy. One that could lead to disappointment.
What I’m trying to communicate is that maybe we should stop assuming that all little boys and girls that aren’t BoingBoing don’t have something to offer, or to say. Yes, I place some emphasis on the girls, but a quick glance at tech.meme shows very clearly that something is wrong when so few women are listed.
(AOL CTO not withstanding, and frankly she has my sympathy.)
Who cares if they, we, anyone says these things? We’re not stopping anyone from disagreeing. We’re not even stopping people from going out dropping dewey eyed pronouncements (all the while, oddly enough, they ignore most everybody but the little circle they surround themeselves with).
Doc asked: what do you want us to do differently?
Nothing. No one is asking anyone to do anything differently. Least of all, sit down, and shut up.
Well, maybe one thing differently: listen.
Jeneane Sessum (comment322):
Shelley, I wish I had answers. I don’t.
These recent ‘declarations’ by some top bloggers seem to be a way of getting comments and links–i think we used to call it link baiting, but now it’s smart networking. Make it a conference track and call it a day.
IMHO, Doc = accidental a-list. he’s be doing what he does (and would be and will) long before any lists and tries harder than — i’ll say any a-list male and most a-list females — to do the right thing. Like, if frank paynter graduates to a-list, he’d be a doc.
I will name names as far as who i think is listening and thinking about this stuff, same as i will name names of those who I think don’t give a shit. Doc does give a shit.
What could they do differently? Maybe Holy RSS has the answer — maybe to deliver a cross section of posts from blogosphere, balanced by male and female bloggers and tagged with other b-z list characteristics, like ethnic diversity, global/local location of blogger, etc., to the inbox of the a-list each day. Maybe even with highlighted sections of posts that may be of interest, pre-filled hyperlinks, and even suggested response posts–pro and con.
Hey, let’s just automate the WHOLE THING and go on a long vacation!
Shelley Powers (comment323):
Lots of people say Doc’s a nice guy, and he is more than willing to link around to other folks. But Jeneane, have you ever noticed that Doc does not debate women?
I’ve seen him debate Dave Rogers dozens of times. I’ve seen him debate David Weinberger and AKMA and others. I’ve seen him link to women, but he never debates them. The most he’ll do with women who don’t agree with him is link them, with some vague comment of ‘interesting’ and moves on.
What does this show? That for all that Doc would be appalled to be considered sexist, he really doesn’t value women’s contributions to the discussions as much as he values men’s.
It’s not enough to link. Why can’t the stupid A list realize that the issue is less fame and links, and more being acknowledged that people’s opinions have worth EVEN if the people aren’t ranked as highly as they way — or don’t have balls for that matter?
Stowe Boyd discusses the recent stuff and references the Times article on fame and dismisses much of this as based on fame. Yet people who write anonymously are just as frustrated. Why? Because we all want to have an equal chance to be part of the conversation. Isn’t this what we’ve been promised? Isn’t this what Doc and David and Winer and the new horde of controllers have all promised? Stick with us, help us make this into a power, and you will have your say.
Hogwash. What’s happened is that a new breed of purely self-serving marketing dweebs moved in, took over, and are siphoning the power of blogging, like a spider sucks the juice out of a fly.
We have been told so much it’s engraved on our butts how this is an egalitarian environment, where any boy and girl and be heard. We now know this is a lie. Being heard in this environment, is no different than being heard in almost any environment: it has less to do with quality and more to do with marketing ability. And not just marketing ability: there is a strong sense of preserving specific patterns of accessibility.
Hugh will come back and say, well why not? Why shouldn’t those with the marketing skills be heard over those who spend less time on marketing?
Because we were promised this would all be different. But it’s not—it’s the same old crap we’ve always had. Where’s the great and noble universe spoken of glowingly by the Dan Gilmores and the Jay Rosen’s? The Docs and the Davids?
But all things balance and there is justice after all.
We webloggers hyped Snakes on a Plane, and we helped it some at the box office, but no where near as much as we assumed we would with all our hype. We webloggers gave money and hype to Dean and he couldn’t even win one primary. The only reason the Democratic party gives us the time of day, now, is we’re good for donations. But, for all they massage our egos, they don’t really think much of us as influencers.
We’re a niche. Webloggers will always be a niche. And that’s just fine for the vast majority of webloggers and journalists, the ones who have decided that they don’t care if the A list pays attention to them or not. So in a way, the A list is a niche within a niche: given some attention in the back pages of the main stream media, but rarely having any influence beyond an occasional issue or story.
We’re a place for second string professionals like Jeff Jarvis and Michelle Malkin to carve themselves out a kingdom and feel all proud of their top of the heap status. Go down the street, ask any 1000 people if they’ve heard of them and I bet most would just look at you. If you ask the person if they’ve heard of weblogging and they say yes, chances are its because they have a high school or junior high kid who has a weblog or journal. But before we make a leap that this younger generation will fuel a great weblogging uprising, these same kids also have had, in the past, hula hoops and go go boots. It’s unlikely that most youthful efforts into weblogging will last into adulthood.
There are issues that we could influence, but they’re not glamorous enough. We don’t want to influence a state senate race; we want the President or nothing at all. We bitched about Apple and iPod city, and then were completely willing to go, “Cool” when given a PR report from the company that all is well. More, we joked about how ‘good’ the people in China have it. (Now, where’s that new video iPod–gimme!) Our combined weblogging ego leads us to believe we can change the world, and we want nothing less. Where we could do good, we can’t focus our attention long enough to start making an impact. (We have the attention spans of gnats.)
But you know, it’s OK to be part of a niche population who likes to write to a journal online. We do it to share, to communicate, to write, to publish to whatever. And for every Shel Israel who professes to hold this environment dear (while promoting his book, you did buy his book didn’t you), there are a hundred, a thousand people who are quietly, happily writing online without worry about fame and fortune. They’re the winners, because they have something no one can give and no one can take away. People like Arrington, Scoble, Israel, Malik, Kawasaki must be scared to death on a daily basis of losing their weblogging fame, because what would they be without it?
That’s, in a way, the revenge of weblogging: knowing that the A list are nothing than noisy ducks, quaking in a barrel. “Look at me!” they warble, and think they have power. We know we don’t have power; they don’t have a friggen clue.
Mommy, that was fun! Can we go for another ride? Can we? Can we?” “Mommy?” “Mommy?” Don’t you feel good Mommy?