Yesterday, I wrote this comment on Tom Asacker’s blog. “There’s so much evangelizing of blogs (by bloggers) right now, it makes me wonder if it’s authentic exuberance or defensive posturing.”
Tom replied to me via e-mail. “I think it is authentic, perhaps just as Heaven’s Gate members were being authentic.”
I too have been thinking about the cultish nature of bloggers. Over at Johnnie Moore’s place I recently commented, “What is a blog? To me a blog is a frequently updated web site. Nothing more. Yet, I sense there is a much deeper meaning to many bloggers. I also sense that bloggers are protective of the blogosphere at large, much in the way fans of a new, hot, but still underground band are. In other words, bloggers can be quite clubby. And who might want entry to this club is a matter of grave concern. Given that I left high school twenty plus years ago, such concerns seem to me childish at best.”
In this paradoxical new media world, we have bloggers on one foot concerned with how corporate applications of blogging could change their precious blogosphere for the worse. On the other foot, we have bloggers singing praises about blogs’ revolutionary and healing powers to the high heavens, encouraging anyone and everyone to board the ship, or risk being left behind.
