Blogcest Makes For God-Awful Reading

Aw, Cute Bloggers Talk About Their Feelings....Shut the Fuck up!

Spencer Ackerman directs us to these two former Gawker bloggers that spill their melodramatic guts on the New York Times and New York Post respectively. Perhaps I'm a schtickler for crappy chick drama, because I read every word of both emotional articles front to back last night. Reading these monstrously long and boring articles is the equivalent of not scoring with some chick after watching "Sleepless in Seattle" followed by a couples reading of a Jane Austen novel, but whatever, my life sucks and I have nothing better to do for entertainment on a Friday Night in Iraq. What really got me angry was how these two people view bloggin'.

Emily Gould talks about her botched appearance on Larry King live where she made a moron out of herself and was hit up with some nasty comments:

I expected the miniature scandal to flare and fade quickly, but for a while it seemed as if it would never go away. The clip made its way to Yahoo’s front page, and a reporter called my parents for comment. After a week or so, the volume of angry e-mail and blog comments subsided, but they stayed under my skin. I decided to try to develop a steely, defiant numbness. I told myself that the strangers who’d taken the time to e-mail me their rants were wrong and crazy, that there was nothing so bad about what I’d done.

This is an example of how people my age can't handle any sort of constructive criticism. If your commenters say your post looks like shit, and that it smells like shit, then your post is probably a piece of shit! This holier than thou attitude developed by bloggers will lead to their inevitable demise, as they have no feedback mechanism with which to adjust their writing style to stay interesting. Blog snobs who have zero relationship with their readers are best suited to being a webmaster for schnooze-inducing reads like the Joey Lawrence fan site.

But, I'm willing to take it easy on Emily Gould because she is an attractive woman w/tattoos. Let's examine this other douche, Joshua Stein, in the NY Post:

There were omens, of course. One day not long after we had started dating, she let drop that she had told our boss about our relationship. Soon I found out she had told almost everyone we worked with. I was torn. I understood the warrior's code of the blogosphere: The conviction that the details of one's inner life are of interest to the larger world legitimized what both Emily and I spent our days doing. On the other hand, I was furious and more than a little scared that she would so unhesitatingly run roughshod over my desire for privacy.

I disagree with his statement about this Warrior Code business. Blogging is supposed to be about raising awareness for issues others might find important. In this blog's case that would be Iraq, veterans sisues, and the impending zombie apocalypse. Sure, you throw a few items of interest about your personal life once in awhile to give proper context and generate interest for a post. But the idea that anyone would care tremendously about your personal life besides your family and friends is a tad self-righteous (who is this guy anyways...Jesus?) .

The smartest thing I read in these extensively long ego-stroke session is the first comment on the Gould piece:

At first, I thought I was reading the sophomore page of the student newspaper at Harding High in Yokelville, Ohio. Then I realized that it was the New York Times. Just awful.

I'd like to buy that person a beer.