I'll admit, when I first started weblogging, I was a little bit concerned with being one of the popular kids, having lots of people read me, getting awards, speaking on panels, what have you. Then I grew up and forgot about it. About 80 people come here a day and read what I have to say and I love them all. I'd still do it if it were only my dad and my college buddies since we're all obligated to support each other's dorky projects anyway. But the friends I've never met are great.
Which is why I think this is easily the dumbest, most destructive thing I've heard about weblogging. Thankfully, I don't know any of the details because if I did, I'd probably be digging a hole to China to hide in to avoid the embarrasment. All I know is I went for a routine visit to my friend Jessica's blog and found nothing. When I asked her about it, she pointed me to this explanation
Read if you must but jeez, it's pathetic, grown people (some of them, please?) acting like lunchtime in the junior high cafeteria. You cheated, no you did, no I campeigned, which isn't cheating. I did both because winning an award for a web site where I discuss funny things that happen to me at the dentist's office is the highlight of my life.
Ugh, are you kidding me?
The Bloggies in question, by the way, are put together by Nikolai Nolan, someone who has shown nothing but support and dedication to the art of blogging for years. And he's 19, at a challenging university and with better thing to do, hopefully, than sift though mountains of petty vanity.
It was supposed to be fun, kiddies. That was the only reason I got into weblogging. Because it was fun to meet people, write everyday and be a creative person in this still evolving medium. That kind of D.I.Y. energy is exciting to me.
In the spirit of that, And if you don't like something that's on the web, build something else yourself. That's the spirit of things around here. Save the bitching, insults, and paranoia for talk radio, media's equivalent of junior high school writ very loud.
I'm going to go groan now.
P.S. No slag intended to Denise, who was very big about trying, level-headedly to clear this mess up.