RANT: Bloggers morph into Jack Black.
Do you remember Jack Black’s character from High Fidelity? Black is a clerk at one of those fantastic There’s a great scene where Black goes nuts on a potential customer who asks for a cheesy album for his daughter. (Here’s a reminder) Rather than use this request as an opening to enlighten the customer with better musical options, Black goes nuts and kicks him out of the store.
The attitude Black and his co-workers have is summed up by a frequent customer later in the movie:
Why do I bring this up, you ask? Because apparently we bloggers, we social media gurus, we fans of user interaction are snobs and elitist too.
Time Magazine’s latest issue was their cover story offering their selection of "You" as the Person of the Year. The issue is a fantastic look the trend of user empowerment and participation that started years ago, but really came to fruition in 2006. Literally the issue was chalked full of stories about YouTube, blogs, Second Life, and much more.
And like Jack Black, bloggers have been reacting with mostly disdain. We too have felt like the underappreciate scholars, but we always said that appreciation would come of the form for recognition. When the rest of the world understand what we were talking about, we said, we’d feel like we’d accomplished something.
Apparently that was bullshit, because like the line goes, we’re shitting on those who know less than we do.
Jeff Jarvis is completely dismissive to Time, basically saying that this story is a non-story since bloggers have known about it all along. Jeff, "normal" people are new to this. Give them a chance to catch up!
Amanda Congdon thinks that only people who are doing well known social media (you know, like her) are important. Amanda, talk about elitist, crickey! Fine, you’re important. Fine, you have lots of cool friends. Move on. The revolution taking place isn’t only about the content producers - after all, you’d have nothing if not for your audience, your commenters, your supporters. Don’t ever forget that.
(Update: Amanda stopped by the comments section and pointed me to her blog entry where she tries to clarify her position. There’s a lively debate raging there. Personally, I stand by my points, and still think her point has gotten completely lost in her delivery. But thanks to Amanda for being willing to engage in the conversation)
Dan Gillmore is complaing about the usage of the word "You" rather than "We". I understand what he’s getting at, and perhaps he has a point. But a minor, seriously minor semantic rant isn’t helpful. Again, think of the Jack Black character - he can’t understand why more people don’t get more into music, yet berates those who try.
Even my friend Josh is nit-picking. The point of this cover isn’t as much about the people producing today, it’s about the evolution/revolution of what’s happening today vs. 2 years ago vs. 5 years from now. It’s about the fact that YouTube and WIkipedia have great participation, but also that they have incredible consumption.
How about we just say thanks, give ourselves a big round of applause, and enjoy a moment of success after years of hard work before we start bitching about the form our success arrives in? Hell, let’s skip the bitching and head straight for figuring out where we go from here? At a readership of tens of millions, the awareness bar was just raised in a big way.
In my book, anything that can help my mom understand what I do is a good thing. Thanks, Time!
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6 Responses to “RANT: Bloggers morph into Jack Black.”
Fair enough - yours is the first decent explaination of legitimate concern/problem/issue with the stories. I didn’t read the articles (there were many) with the same level of concern that you did, but I see where you’re coming from.
Thanks for the clarification!
Jake,
You misunderstood me.
I believe anyone actively involved online should be included in the “us”. Commentors, those who pass on links, bloggers– popular or not. I chose to display some of my favorites… many are “A” list, some are not. Did you take a look at the comments section of my videoblog? There was a lively discussion regarding this very point. My intent was never to come across as elitist, but instead was to give credit where credit’s due– to all of us who actually participate online.
Amanda, first off welcome to the site. Thanks for taking time to stop by and more importantly leave a comment!
I’ll have to check otu the comments, I’m very interested to see what others have to say.
But I’d encourage you to take another look at the video. I checked it out again after reading your comment, and yes, it still comes across in the same way I first thought… at least to me. I think perhaps we are both defining “participation” differently. I take your point to mean that participation = creation, whereas I believe that participation = participation. I believe that this “revolution” we’re seeing unfold is as much about the user who clicks the YouTube star rating as it is the person who created the video on YouTube in the first place.
Off to read the comments on your site!
Thanks again for the comment.
Jake,
As a podcaster, blogger, and new/social media producer, I find that of the 60 Million+ blogs in existence today, only a handful seem to represent the blogosphere overall. This is a sad reality.
Most “elite” bloggers are also the least accessible, and I tend to wonder, why? Is it because of their thousands of readers per month? Their “status?” Their recognition?
For the past few weeks, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated by the obvious “I am better than than most” mentality shared by these bloggers.
“We” are supposedly a “community,” which means an act of SELFLESSNESS, rather than SELFISHNESS.
I challenge the “elite” bloggers to become more accessible and denounce their obvious egos to help the blogosphere move forward as ONE — together.
Jake, I left a response to your Amanda comment on her blog, but here I’d just like to vent a few more things!
I agree that Amanda seemed to cite Participation as Creation (quote: “I?m saying, everyone who participates is person of the year. Those who remain passive consumers, however, are not.”) and this I disagree with.
But as for someone who watches a video being of equal importance to the person who created it:
Yes they’re important in the “without people watching it’d get nowhere” side of things, but I give them more credit than passive consumers because they acted on their creativity to make something new. In your YouTube scenario, commenters talk around the video because its a relatively easier process, whereas blogging opinions, making vidcasts, Youtubing takes more effort.
And for that, I give them (creators) more credit, and see them as more deserving of Person Of The Year.
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Jake I think you’re ultimately right. The problem I had with the article, was that Time was trying to position themselves as being part of the ’social media revolution’ by saying ‘we’ throughout the article. But you look at their site, and all they have are RSS feeds, and a few ‘blogs’, none of which allow comments.
So really they didn’t seem to think that the ’social media revolution’ was that big of a deal, but they did think they could sell some extra issues of Time by focusing on it and the content creators. David Armano had a great spin, saying that it was a case of Time trying to become relevant with bloggers, and bloggers using Time to get mainstream exposure. Mutual exploitation
But you’re right, if the end result is that Everytown U.S.A gets exposed to these tools that we are enjoying for the first time, that’s a good thing.