I'm trying to explore more of the blogosphere, generally a waste of time since most of the bloggers I read have the same skill level as many people who write "poetry" -- none. I'm not out to find blogs to laugh at; I'd really like to find quality blogs to check periodically for new thoughts and ideas, even ones I don't agree with.
But holy crap. This guy is something else: Everything I Know Is Wrong. His site contains a long list of recommendations, right at the top where you can't miss them. But when I followed the links all I found were reciprocal links, sites with no mention of this blog, or dead links. A lot of the links went to archives at the specified sites, and the archived locations were nearly 2 years old. So at one point in time, he got some fellow travelers to do a bit of logrolling for him, and that's good enough to stay the course.
But here's the part that bugged me. He has what on the surface appears to be the support and admiration of fellow bloggers, but almost no comments. Every six or seventh post has 1 comment, several by the same guy. Either his words are so compelling that no one has anything to add (and he leaves them in such awe they can't even add the usually ubiquitous "Great post!"). Now I'm not the most famous blogger in the land, but my diaries have been getting half-a-dozen or more comments (very intelligent, too). My posts at BlueOregon.com generate significant discussion (I've even got my own personal troll there, the online equivalent of a stalker, almost cool); I've been quoted by the AP, interviewed by Air America in Detroit (oy at 5 a.m. Pacific time), and political reporters at the Oregonian and Gazette-Times (my local paper) have added me to their list of contacts as a result of those writings. In short, I'm a small fish in this big pond, and I get at least a handful of comments. It encourages me to keep going, to keep practicing the writing skills online.
Sean, the perpetrator of EIKIW, does at least keep pressing on. But it appears no one seems to know or care. I'm not sure why he's being ignored; it could be, based on his latest post, he's not very good. He has very little original content, mostly using exerpts from other sources, such as the transcript of Dean on Russert to point out what a poor job Dean is doing; I'm sure Sean means for this to be biting satire, but his final line, and I quote in full: "Auuuuuugh!" ... oh yea, we're talking Pulitzer here. He has very little original to say; mostly he's taking other people's work -- Power Line, NY Times, hacks like Michele Malkin -- and adding a line or two of comment. That's not writing, kid; that's scribbling notes in the margin. Coloring outside the lines.
Writers write. They don't annotate, they don't log-roll. They write. They have a thought, a feeling, a need: Something needs to be said, something has to get out. They have no choice but to sit down and write. It's rarely brilliant or earth-shattering, but it's at least an attempt to be original and to be honest. It's an attempt to be true to self. They don't put up websites, announce how brilliant everything thinks they are, and then dump out bits of words they've taken from others. If they comment, they add original thought, or at least explain what is in their own heart and mind.
Hackery is not writing, and self-agrandizing emptiness is just sad.