12 September 2009
Reviewing Reviewers--Say Everything: The Final Review
)Published on September 12th, 2009 @ 04:38:21 pm, using 618 words, 154 views
The sound you’re hearing is the Phat Lady singing here at SMILT. Real Life has called on all us creators of said blog, one at a time, and how it’s time to draw the curtain. We hope you’ve enjoyed or at least gotten something out of the reviews, stories, and ruminations we’ve put up here over the last couple of years. It won’t be as hard to leave as we might once have thought because it gets tough writing about what’s been going on in the last several years. If/when the economy starts recovering in a meaningful way for regular people, we have follow-up waves of weather, water, energy, food, pensions, and, you know, other countries to deal with. We’re at the leading edge of an historical phase transition, with all the implications of that that historians have chronicled for centuries now. Unfortunately for the US, the current administration is the second coming of Adlai Lieberman, with the same prospects.
But the US has faced phase transitions with bought-and-paid-for Congresses, right-wing courts, and the Pierces, Fillmores, and Buchanans and the Hardings, Coolidges, and Hoovers before and managed to come out on the other side. Too often we’ve embraced the stupid and vicious as a country and once in a while we’ve not only embraced them but spread our legs for them. That’s where we are now. But maybe a third salvation is possible. It may be tempting fate, especially considering the truly existential problems facing us (US) this time (see above), but maybe we’ll be able to get past the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas and find real wisdom and leadership when their atrocities are no longer tolerated. It’s just too bad that we’ve always waited until reality got too hard to blow off the way we always want to before we face up to our challenges and muster courage and brains rather than fear and bluster to address what needs to be done. They say God smiles on children, drunkards, and Americans. Let’s just hope he hasn’t been paying too close attention.
What does that have to do with this review of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg? Well, mainly because it places us in the context of blogging history, small a role as we’ve played, well discussed here in this review of the history, performance, and future of blogging. Why should you read it? Consider this catchy excerpt, which should be enough to entice:
Refreshingly, Rosenberg is a blog historian, not a promoter. He casts an even light around the blogosphere, noting the many instances when this self-expression tool has also promoted verbal thuggery. Rosenberg asks: “How much antisocial behavior are we willing to countenance in authenticity’s name?’’
In a style both conversational and compelling, Rosenberg describes how technology and the wider culture converged to help move blogs from their small orbit (“as the quip went, being ‘famous for fifteen people’ ’’ ) to being substantial enough to merit articles like the landmark November 2000 New Yorker article “You’ve Got Blog.’’
“Small orbit.” That pretty well describes us and the 150-300 of you kind enough to check in with us daily to see what “antisocial behavior” we were spewing today. We do appreciate it. But there are other places to visit, some of which we’ve recommended, and others to avoid (The New York Times Book Review [sic] comes to mind, for example). Enjoy. As the review concludes,
How could something done for free, with no guaranteed audience, become so big? Rosenberg puts it all in historical context, and in this context, notes, “Now that we’ve begun, it’s impossible to imagine stopping.’”
Not for us.
Thanks again.
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