Non-co-optation

Posted on November 3, 2003 in Blogging Crosstalk Journalists & Pundits

Yule the Magnificent dug up a 1956 article which addresses the concerns of bloggers trying to “make it into the big time”:

it’s debilitating for discourse if publications of “little” circulation try to adapt to the modus operandus of the “big” circulation journals. That’s somewhat similar to blogging trying to figure out how to become “A-list” instead of using the power of the individual voice. The problem is how to avoid co-optation.

When I launched this blog last year, I made an effort to make things “personal”. For a time, I worried about allowing political commentary to creep in, but I decided that my thinking about our government and society was part and parcel of my personal identity, so I resolved to include it with the proviso that it would not flood out other aspects of my personality and creative life.

I have seen the co-optation take root across the face of many blogs, alas, many of whom have turned to politics and fashion almost exclusively because that is what attracts readers. As a personal counterweight, I’ve made a point to frequent blogs where the material roves with the mind of the writer. I prefer not to worry about those people who can’t take the fact that I think for myself and choose my own subjects. I don’t make it a ritual to open the newspaper and comment everyday — what matters most to me is charting where I am.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t be daring or sometimes take on issues that everyone else is writing about. Last week’s articles and photos about San Bernardino’s Old Fire should put to rest the notion that I just sit in my chair, allowing the world to come to me (as is the case for most bloggers).

What bothers me most about the pundit blogs out there is that they don’t set themselves in the world they write so vociferously about. I do this. I strive to look out my window and observe whether the rain has painted the sidewalk, the patterns on the hills, and what the kids in the street are doing. What is most political in our lives is what is most immediate. I choose not to be a ghost whose thinking is inspired by the newspapers or the magazines I read. I don’t watch television. Think of me as a hermit who is always on a wordfast, partaking only of that which is essential to my present life, ignoring the fast food pumped out by the media mills.

I think that has a major effect in what gets written here, what I choose to read. Among my bloglinks you will find the following: a Seattle artist who is composing a series on the Gospel of Thomas, a Texas gardener who shares photos of his flowers almost daily, a Leftist agitator with a passion for hockey, a Kansas artist whose every entry is an original postcard, a Wiccan housewife, a New Mexican poet, a lesbian who writes of her marriage, a self-styled street monk, and, of course, Yule, to name a few.

I don’t call my list “democratic”: I’m not trying to represent every point of view. I include what attracts me. It’s not key that I keep track of opposing views. I write for people who know what I am on to already and I seek people who love to talk about their passions. If I start writing a journal of response, I lose my edge, I become yet another media hack, unpaid. I have chosen to be myself, to draw other selves to me and to seek them out. It’s not important to be popular: it’s not the millions but the quality of the few who come that matter most to me. I enjoy existing in hyperspace and I am happy to declare that I feel free when I come to write about my discoveries here.

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P.S. I am a little behind in reciprocating links. I will do that this week.