There is only one form of blogger that is more tedious that the navel-gazer who posts about the eflluvia of their daily lives and that is the blogger who gazes at other people’s navels, especially those who do so looking for lint. Gawker and Wonkette are the twin archetypes of the OPNG, each representing two of the most self-important cities in America - New York (Gawker) and Washington D.C. (Wonkette). (Will LA be next? If so I recommend the name Gazer.)
Both sites are published by entrepreneur Nick Denton whose Gawker media also includes blog sites dedicated to reviewing p*rn (Fleshbot) and gadgets (Gizmodo). Denton is to snaky blogs what Mark Burnett is to reality TV: a well-connected insider whose projects gain attention simply because of his 'brand." This helps explain why his blogs attract attention despite the fact that they completely suck. (Ironically, Wonkette is written by Ana Marie Cox, who used to edit the now defunct Suck column which, as a matter of fact, didn’t suck at all.)
The fact that you have ever heard about these blogs has little to do with their content. As I’ve said before, blogging about the ban on garlic in a company’s cafeteria won’t get you noticed by Instapundit. If the cafeteria belongs to New Yord media conglomerate Conde Nast, though, it will get you mentioned in their magazines.
But even if you live in New York or D.C. and catch all the inside references the shtick would still be lame. Jack Shafer, who refers to these blogs as 'the twin offspring of a date-rape incident between Drudge Report and the original Spy magazine", writes:
Now, where I came from, if you intend to kill the puppy for fun, you must first make friends with it for a few days so there's a whiff of surprise when the slaughter arrives. Not so with Gawker and Wonkette. They're so fixated on the hunting of the snark that they're prepared to flame everybody to a crisp. Don't believe me? Try reading several weeks worth of Gawkers in one sitting. Founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers delighted in the journalistic nihilism of her blog last May, telling Warren St. John of the New York Times that "Gawker is devoted exclusively to frivolity and excess" and celebrates "the complete, total, and wholly unapologetic embrace of decadence." Likewise, Wonkette told the Baltimore Sun last month, "I write and speak faster than I think and I often get people in trouble."
I have tried reading several weeks -- okay, I have to confess that I couldn’t read more than a few days -- worth of these blogs and found them nauseatingly irrelevant. Snark for snarks sake is a tired trope in the blogosphere. These blogs don’t even produce a sugar high, just the bad aftertaste left by a third-rate knockoff of Sweet N' Low.
Yet notice that both blogs are mentioned in major daily newspapers (as well as Shafer‘s Slate column). Can the attention that they have received truly be attributed to their content? Or is it simply that US magazine-style blogs will inevitably receive more attention that Wilson Quarterly-type content providers? An even better question is why do those who should know better pay them any attention at all? As Shafer asks:
'Are these blogs a part of the better world we hope to leave to our sons and daughters?
Well, yes, if we intend for our children to grow strong from sucking bile instead of milk.
Indeed. So why should we sip this bile when the blogosphere offers much meatier content to feast upon?
1
Great post. I could not agree more.
Do you think some of the attention they get is due to the geek's desperate desire to feel cool? For a certain type of person Wonkette probably seems like the essence of hip detachment.
posted on 03.12.2004 8:24 AM3
Jealous of what? Jealous that he's not an airhead? She says "3,000 dead. *yawn*." "A spy for Saddam" *yawn*."
That crap gets old fast.
4
I post about the eflluvia of my daily life.
I feel second rate now.
What else should I post about?
posted on 03.15.2004 12:21 AM