Comments on: Hat Tip to Dennis

By: Dennis G. Jerz

Dennis G. Jerz — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

The journalist-bloggers have Andrew Orlowski to stir them up… the hypertext theorists had Sven Birkerts… President Reagan had The Evil Empire. Is part of the problem that bloggers simply agree with each other too much? Do we need to propose a round-table stuffed with academic arguments that challenge all that we believe is cool and true about blogs?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

I wonder if it’s way to make the real community of bloggers match the imagined communities of blogs, SNSs, etc. (Benedict Anderson again).

Have to wonder whether all the agreement is a way of hedging against the inevitable disagreements that happen, since they have, from time to time, been known to be bilious and nasty.

By: John

John — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Or it could be that almost no one is invested in any version of Blog history or the Blog discipline. Most academic catfights seem to grow out of real and perceived threats to one’s most dearly held views of one’s discipline.

I figure Mike’s dissertation will rigorously define upper, middle and working class blogs, thus providing us a theoretical basis for choosing up sides and pissing at one another.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Dennis, I think a panel on “The problems with weblogging” would be interesting — my natural tendency, of course, is towards critique. There is stuff written that’s critical of weblogs, but most of it’s pretty uninformed or stereotyped.

Although I’ll note — partly in response to John — as I briefly have before that weblogging might be considered one of Veblen’s practices of “conspicuous leisure”.