Friday, August 05, 2005

NYT's Crush on Blogs, Part 2

Now, NYT, I've teased you before about your schoolgirl crush on blogs.

But this editorial is just ridiculous.

First, there's your self-consciously goofy math:
If the blogosphere continues to expand at this rate, every person who has Internet access will be a blogger before long, if not an actual reader of blogs.

NYT, you don't have to pretend to be bad at math to get boys to like you!
Besides, that's a lame rip-off of my earlier post in the same vein.

NYT, quit copying me!

Anyway.

Then comes your teasing:
The conventional media - this very newspaper, for instance - have often discussed the growing impact of blogging on the coverage of news. Perhaps the strongest indicator of the importance of blogdom isn't those discussions themselves, but the extent to which media outlets are creating blogs - or bloglike manifestations - of their own.
That is the serious side of the blogosphere. But blogs are often just a way of making oneself appear on the Internet. It's like a closed-circuit video camera that catches a glimpse of you walking by an electronics store window filled with televisions. There you are in all your glory, suddenly, if not forever, mediated.

This very newspaper??! Oh, wow! Are blogs that important?
Oh, wait, no-- bloggers are a bunch of yokels who think putting some garbage on the Internet means they're important. You say writing a blog is basically staring at your reflection ("in all your glory").
And blogs' importance, if any? It's in the lame "bloglike manifestatons" of media outlets blogs have inspired.

NYT, I suppose if you wrote a sonnet about me, that'd be my importance, right?
What do you mean, why would you write a sonnet about me? I see you scribbling in your notepad and hiding it when I come by. So, back to what I was saying.
You say bloggers' output isn't really important, like that of, oh, I dunno, print journalists. Their bloglike contributions to "reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in" are much more lasting and substantial.
No? Well that's what it sounded like you were saying!

NYT, my feelings would be hurt if (1) I thought anyone read this blog besides you and my friends, and (2) I didn't know you tease 'cause you have the hots for me.

What? Everyone knows.
Really? Then why are you blushing? Yes, you are. No, I will not "shut up."
Fine, then! Run off! You'll be back!

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