The
Word Wide Web
Stoking
the public discourse:
blogs, blogging and bloggers.
Joe Edmon
May 1, 2002
A "blog," a contraction of "weblog," is essentially a pithy online journal that includes links to articles and Web sites. What separates blogs from personal homepages and the infamous list o’ links, is that blogs are short, the writing is relevant to the days’ events and they’re updated constantly. Better yet, blogs aren’t filled with the typical vein-popping ranting, flaming, spamming, yelling and screaming you find on message boards and in chat rooms, nor do they suffer the embarrassingly personal, photos-from-our-family-vacation tripe. Most bloggers even use their real names.
Blogs are a conversation and civil debate carried on with other blogs, other bloggers and readers. It’s real discourse, and the adults are in charge.
In the current terrorism/war-charged environment, "war blogs" have become white hot. They are daily discussions of war politics that go beyond the headlines and formulaic reporting. The following post from Glenn Reynolds (instapundit.com) is illustrative of this new, intensely detailed blogging style. It also illustrates the Internet ping-pong that these blogs are all about. The post is in response to a comment made on the progressive American Prospect magazine site (www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2002/04/tapped-s-04-22.html) about an earlier post by Reynolds that had included a link to pictures showing the areas of destruction in Jenin in the West Bank:
"The AMERICAN PROSPECT refers to my mention of the Jenin aerial photos and says that small areas of destruction don’t prove the absence of a massacre: ‘For example, check out this aerial photo of Ground Zero. Gee, look at the rather small area actually destroyed. But of course, that misses the point entirely. A mass grave can be very small indeed.’ Well, yeah — though that would be more persuasive if there had been, you know, skyscrapers standing there in Jenin beforehand.
"But I wasn’t linking to the photos to disprove a massacre. (The fact that the Guardian/Observer is backpedaling should be far stronger evidence of that). Rather — as I thought the post made clear — I was pointing out that news and TV reports make it look as if all of Jenin was leveled. ..."—(instapundit.blogspot.com/2002_04_21_instapundit_archive.html#85027141).
Reynolds posted this message at 11:59 a.m., and the Prospect commented 45 minutes later. Reynolds responded at 5:15 p.m., and the Prospect had its rebuttal up at 5:37 p.m. This isn’t the quick repartee of Crossfire, thank God, but real debate about ideas and facts.
Newspapers today are marketing-driven and focus-group-approved versions of their 19th-century forbearers, updated with color photographs, trying to understand a 21st century that doesn’t need a Lifestyles section anymore.
Television is no better. It provides a slick package designed to appeal to the broadest possible demographic — in such a way that doesn’t offend the sensibilities of the advertisers or owners. When mainstream-media types complain that blogging is egocentric navel gazing, they forget the puffed-up, self-important inanity of writings by Maureen Dowd or even Honolulu’s Charles Memminger, writings which are — ohmigod — biased opinions ... without the links.
The irony of the Web is that in spite of all the brave-new-world, interactive, Flash-enabled, live-from-the-remote-corners-of-the-earth hype, the Web is still about the written word. Back in 1998 (ancient history now), words were passé. A much cooler, multimedia, wired world awaited, if we could just ship enough pizza, caffeine and party drugs to the programming sweatshops in Silicon Valley.
The Web was rife with cyber-rich Gen-Xers with more kewl in their pinkies than the unwashed masses would ever experience, and they had the money to live it. Wired magazine was the hitchhiker’s guide to the wired world, where über-cyber-cool oozed at parties everywhere. The dot-com bust of 2000 froze the ooze in its tracks — no more money, no more cool stuff. The Web didn’t die, though; it went back to its core, which happens to be words. Those words are now on the march, electronically etched in blogs.
Blogs are a natural response to the money-rich media so interested in pushing content at us that they forgot we are perfectly capable of creating our own — or just turning on the TV. While the media conglomerates are trying to understand the appeal of the bloggers’ opinionated commentary and like-minded links, they fail to see that blogs are the antithesis of media, the antithesis of inter-media-tion: words, direct conversation and open debate versus sound-bytes, packaging, ratings and click-through rates.
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, published in 1999 (Perseus) at the peak of the dot-com miracle, grimly described the new Internet marketing paradigm and warned that slick media companies were in the process of stealing the soul of the Web. Co-author Christopher Locke wrote:
"You are being packaged for advertisers by some of the hippest hucksters on the planet.
"Dig deeper. Down to the sites that never entertained the hope of Buck One. ... Put your ear to those tracks and listen to what’s coming like a freight train. What you’ll hear is the sound of passion unhinged, people who have had it up to here with white-bread culture. ..." (quoted from Locke’s blog at www.marketinghacker.com.br/archives/2002_02_01_log.html.)
Bloggers have become that "sound of passion unhinged" and have taken to heart Locke’s admonition: "There’s a bulimic’s dream-feast of killer kontent on the way. But if it already makes you want to puke, get angry. Write it, code it, paint it, play it — rattle the cage however you can. Stay hungry. Stay free. And believe it: win, lose, or draw, we’re here to stay. Armed only with imagination, we’re gonna rip the fucking lid off." Imagine Clark Kent saying that to Perry White. It just ain’t gonna happen.
Blogs aren’t the typical, CNN/Fox-distilled, white hat/black hat, us-against-them debates. Locke’s explanation of the appeal of the Web applies to blogs: "Never in history had so many had the chance to know what so many others were thinking on such a wide range of subjects." Blogs are free speech that is unpackaging packaged media and stomping on their white-bread culture.
Blogs can also be filled with humor and pathos. They can be intriguing, unscripted individual views of life itself, without the scripted mawkishness of television (check out Jason Kottke’s haunting blog from 9/11: kottke.org/notes/0109.html#010911).
Spend a few days with Andrew Sullivan (andrewsullivan.com), considered by many to be the king of the bloggers, and you’ll find a talented, prolific writer, former editor of the The New Republic; an unapologetic conservative, gay, queasy about abortion and stem-cell research, pro marijuana legalization; a monarchy-loving British expatriate and a devout Catholic. While his blog is political, the unwritten undercurrents are about a man struggling to understand a world that doesn’t quite understand him. Imagine Clark Kent saying that to Perry White.
Some bloggers have more readers than most newspaper columnists. The Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, in an April 22 article about blogging, reports that Andrew Sullivan is getting over 75,000 "unique visitors" a week, and that Reynolds over at instapundit.com received over 49,000 "hits" in one day. (The "unique visitor" measurement counts an individual once, no matter how many times he/she visits — or "hits" — a site per day.) Smaller bloggers can average about 1,000 hits a day, according to Kurtz, and report that they get a couple of thousand additional hits when Reynolds’ site gives them a mention.
ARE BLOGS A FAD?
No. Blogs have been around since 1994 and now there are an estimated 1 to 3 million of them. The hyperactive war/political blogs getting all the attention right now only number a few thousand. The other couple of million blogs come from around the world and cover a wide range of interests, from the slice of life (Michele teaches her kids mosh diving at www.rhzine.com/archives/000061.htm; and a hilarious bad day at the office unfolds at www.asmallvictory.net/oldshit/2002_04.html, scroll to the April 23 entry) to cultural angst (redsugar.com/journal.html), to just plain fun (themightygeek.com), and whatever else you can think of.
DO BLOGS HAVE AN IMPACT?
The Drudge Report managed to define the last three years of the Clinton presidency in one day. The Drudge Report (drudgereport.com) is a link-heavy news-digest blog with entertaining headlines. (Anti-Drudgies can check out smudgereport.com.)
Drudge aside, proving bloggin’s cause-and-effect impact is impossible. However, here are two examples of recent coincidences: The New York Times web site pulled a Ted Rall cartoon within hours after a worldwide blog firestorm erupted because of the cartoon; and the news media are increasingly labeling liberal pundits and sources as being "liberal" after a lot of blogger complaints about the on-going habit of labeling conservatives. The Times probably got thousands of e-mails about the Rall cartoon from angry readers who have never read a blog, but they also got thousands more from blog readers who wrote because of the blogs.
It’s likely that mainstream media producers, editors and marketers, desperately trying to increase viewership/readership, are keeping a newly attentive eye on the blogs, looking for topics and angles that will appeal to the disaffected masses. Bloggers are probably having an indirect effect on the national debate as well, by adding substance to it and by helping to inform and sharpen opinion.
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF BLOGGING?
The Kennedy assassination transformed television news and made it credible. 9/11 has transformed blogging. Only time will tell if blogging becomes credible. Many popular bloggers (andrewsullivan .com, kausfiles.com, instapundit.com, dynamist .com/scene.html, mattwelch.com/warblog.html) are writers and political journalists who have contacts and access to insider sources. As the 2002/2004 campaigns heat up, these guys will probably be receiving late-night faxes from anonymous, high-placed know-it-alls. One blogger to watch is Joshua Micah Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com. Marshall, the standard bearer for liberal bloggers, enjoys skewering Republicans and the Bush White House. As a former Washington editor of the American Prospect, he has many contacts that he often refers to anonymously in his posts. I expect that by the 2004 election you’ll see his and other blog sites quoted in the news.
DO YOU HAVE A PITHY CLOSING STATEMENT ABOUT BLOGS?
"The news with a twist — of lime" —(vodkapundit.com).
Editor’s note: Explore the world of blogs at www.honoluluweekly.com. We have created a special blogging section on our home page with links to popular blogs to help you find other blogs, and even point you to sites that will help you create your own blog. Happy blogging.
WE DO IT ISLAND STYLE
Ryan Kawailani Ozawa
Just like that, the whole world is agog over blogs, proving that nothing sells better than an old idea with a cool new name.
A blog is basically a short-form diary. How plain. And yet, how irresistible. Everyday folks — and not-so-everyday folks — have been spouting off on the Web since 1994. All the blog revolution has done for them is provided scandalously easy ways to do so. Forget HTML and FTP; you can rant about your ex-husband to the world with the push of a button.
With or without the new label or the fancy tools, it should be no surprise that Hawai‘i geeks have been writing on the Web for years. You might tie it to our talk-story nature (or penchant for gossip), or frame it as an escape from repressive cultures, but make no mistake — locals (like me) are expressing themselves with a vengeance.
Witness Albert, aka Panther, already infamous in some online circles (www.lava.net/~panther). He ogles cute boys at UH one minute, ponders Greek philosophy the next. He sketches and paints, devours books at Hamilton Library, buys sundaes at Dairy Queen and spends a lot of time people-watching. He is also, among many other things, a self-proclaimed "urban nomad" (a class others might call "homeless").
Or how about Sarah Bruner (syrup.org), Island ex-pat in Austin, whose writing often puts paid pros to shame. Here’s a writer as her truest self, sometimes poetic and obscure, sometimes funny or poignant. There’s Donna (champuru.com), Okinawan sansei and craftmaker, who reflects on God, family and The Rock’s sexy hair. There’s Mac fanatic Jon Asato (talkstink.com), who takes on the world but manages to avoid talking stink most of the time. And there’s Ian Lind, who appears in these pages now and then, and whose blog (ilind.net) tracks our local media scene on one hand, and the follies of his cats on the other.
Some bloggers are frustrated or wanna-be writers, some are activists, some are geeks, Goths or egotists, some are overly verbose assholes. There are entire subcommunities of Hawai‘i bloggers, from Roosevelt High School students to Island expats who wistfully wax on Spam musubi and Leonard’s malasadas.
The breadth of thought and opinion is as diverse as Hawai‘i itself. And for those who have otherwise doubted the existence of talent, creativity and serious thought in the Islands, it’s inspiring. In these days of dorm-room Web cams, salacious streaming video and blinking, blinding Flash tricks, sometimes a thousand words are mightier than a picture.
Mililani grad Ryan Kawailani Ozawa is founder of journal portal Diarist.Net. He hosts a talk-story blog, HawaiiStories.Com, and remarks on his own unremarkable life at lightfantastic.org.
