Matt Welch gives a warning to bloggers –
don’t let it all go to your head. He’s right, to a point. Bloggers tend to have a
low bullshit tolerance, even from other bloggers. Even someone like Glenn Reynolds,
who gets more hits in one hour than I do in six months (and then some!) hasn’t
seemed to have let it go to his head. After all, this is just a sideline for most of us,
and we do it because we like it more than anything else. (Although the fame and
fortune part would suit me just fine.)
Harlan Ellison, the great science fiction writer, used to sit in a bookstore with
his typewriter and write out a complete short story, putting each page up in the
window for all to see the moment it was complete. Once on the page, he couldn’t
go back. It was what he called "working without a net." That’s what
blogging is – working without a net – and if you get careless or sloppy, you fall.
Plus, with bloggers, you know what you’re getting. There’s no pretense of
objectivity here, so less chance of hypocrisy. Of course, down the pike blogdom
could become as stale as the traditional media has largely become today – and
that’s when the next revolution will start.
