Why I'll never make the A-list, and why that's okay
First of all, I want to link to Mac Diva's entry in the TLB New Blog showcase. This isn't a gratuitous act; I literally don't do those things. I linked to this article before, but it scrolled off and the official count is Sunday so I'm putting the link where it will be counted. I want a leftie blog to win, to get that attention. Think of it as affirmative action for the left if you want; to me it's more like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
Last week a total of 67 votes, and I didn't get one. I mean, I know what I submitted was a bit pompous, especially the title, but…
This is what happened. I saw the contest, and I said "what the hell, found the post on my front page that gave the best idea of my concerns and submitted it. Next day I checked the current stats and I found I had no votes, but an entry about which roll of toilet paper would one use (I swear to god) had one vote. At that point, I stopped checking until today because a suspicion I'd been nursing for a few weeks gelled… I have no idea what people will want to read.
See, I had no idea whether or not I wanted this blog to be popular when I started this. You hear so much about a thing, you get curious. And this was a curiosity I could sate with no additional cost. Instead of thinking about, analyzing and being unpleasantly surprised by current events, I could write down my thoughts. analyses and unpleasant reactions instead. Hey… in the process, I might learn how a blogging tool should work and make millions (don't worry, this isn't an ad. I've been too busy blogging to write a blogging tool).
Also, I have a real interest in how people work. That knowledge wasn't automatic for me, I had to consciously learn about people and decide how to act toward them. Watching and participating in this Internet thing has given me a whole new set of parameters to deal with, new ways to test my basic Theorem of Human Nature:
Humans never change what they do; they just change what they do it with.
I've come to blogging with a sense of curiosity as well as urgency. The Conservative agenda is a threat to the majority of the country, and too many people go for the okey-doke.
So I write in public. It's an extension of other activities I�ve been involved in, and I'll get further involved as long as the threat exists. I quote things that either raise an issue I want to comment on or says something I agree with better than I would. I frequent every blog on my blogroll several times a week… I'll not likely let it grow to the point where I can't.
And the subjects I choose aren't always those that show up in the Great Attractor of blog subjects. Why? Because not too many folks are blogging on them. Either no interest or no knowledge they exist. So I bring them up, and you can say "yeah and" or you can say "no, but," I don't care which.
And I see my theory holds true for the most part; blogtopia is a society and has its pecking order. I see some of the impact of being mentioned by the "cool guys" on links and view counts. I see subcultures, A-lister being the nucleus around which lesser blogs orbit, with swarms of commenters flitting in and out of the systems like virtual particles. I see Mac's entry doing really well this week—the very entry she submitted last week. TLB reorganized the presentation of entries so everyone has a better chance of being seen. And Cowboy Kahlil referred people to a post I wrote after my entry—same week, though—that really was much better than the one I submitted, while I respond to the issue with myself I mentioned in that post by blogging about Africa, but ALL of it— not just AIDS and starvation, though that must also be mentioned.
Somewhere, I think it was on Anil's blog, I read something about how to create an A-list blog in this power-law environment. The first step, he said, was to start blogging a year ago. And that was six months or so ago. And there's a major element of randomness in who see you. And I
still don't know what people want to read.
But I know what I want to write. So that's what I write. And if the number of links I get ever becomes important that it becomes the reason I maintain the blog, I'll find a new way to express myself… which means I'm just not dedicated enough to "break in."
But since that's not why I started, that's okay with me.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/6/2003 06:57:53 PM |
Posted by P6 at June 6, 2003 06:57 PM
| Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/699
