Hey, isn't anyone going to link to the Bloggies 2002?

January 3, 2002 6:45 PM

Hey, isn't anyone going to link to the Bloggies 2002? Ok, I will. I nominated our genial host here for Lifetime Achievement. Who's with me?
posted by Lynsey (39 comments total)

I'm going to buck the trend and not link to the bloggies on my blog. Unless someone nominates me.
posted by sillygwailo at 6:50 PM on January 3, 2002

Lifetime achievement? Is that in blog-years?
posted by phatboy at 7:11 PM on January 3, 2002

30 categories with hundreds, if not thousands of nominees? Sigh. I guess this won't be the year Beernut or Lynn Rockwell takes home the pewter.
posted by KLAX at 7:44 PM on January 3, 2002

Why doesn't someone just ship Kottke a 20-dollar bill and call the whole thing off?

Yes, I'm jealous. Why?
posted by Poagao at 7:54 PM on January 3, 2002

If Matt wins a Lifetime Achievement Award, he should use the following quote from George Carlin:

"When they first told me about this award, I immediately inquired, “Whose lifetime are we talking about?” When they said it was mine, I said I would accept the award on the condition that, in exchange, I at least be allowed to live out the rest of my life. They said OK. But if I die soon, I’m gonna be pissed."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:05 PM on January 3, 2002

I must be the only person on the planet who doesn't read Kottke. Dunno why, but he's just never interested me that much.

Still, I took the time to fill out the nomination form this year. I nominated a few friends who are more or less unrecognized.

And while I'm usually apathetic about awards such as these, I must confess that I would really like to win this one. After all, all of us who blog are after at least a certain amount of attention. If we weren't, why bother with putting stuff on the web in the first place?
posted by aladfar at 8:18 PM on January 3, 2002

Personally I think there should be an award for people who successfully avoid aquiring any award for blogs throughout their career of blogging. In this way, everyone would have an award and the entire issue would finally be what it should be. Moot.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:28 PM on January 3, 2002

That's a lot of nominees.

Do we have to fill out all the categories? There are some in which I'd be no help at all e.g. Best Weblog About Politics.

That page sure is durn purdy, though.
posted by Succa at 8:32 PM on January 3, 2002

Oops.

The maximum number of weblogs you may nominate for a category is three for most categories and four for Weblog of the Year. There is no minimum.

There is no minimum.

I knew that'd happen.
posted by Succa at 8:34 PM on January 3, 2002

All of those points are fine and good, but I want to talk about what really matters: how exactly does this whole does relate to Kottke?

I like the whole "awards are meaningless" angle though I also find the "why else are we doing this?" question equally compelling and provocative. I guess the bottom line is that we all have to ask ourselves that age-old question: "Am I Doing Something That Kottke Would Have Done If Kottke Were Me?" (AIDSTKWHDIKWM? — as they say.)

Kottke definitely wouldn't say that he was doing it for the sake of winning awards (that whole Yahoo Internet Life incident aside). But on the other hand, you wouldn't catch him saying that everyone should get an award and that awards are moot because what about all his awards and the credibility they afford him?

No, no, my friends, if we follow logic then we must agree that this is Kottke's playbox and we all just play in it. If he makes the rules then you, and me, and hell, yes, even Steven Den Beste have to play by them. It's the way the system works. I guess what I'm saying is ...





Vote for Alamut
posted by sylloge at 8:52 PM on January 3, 2002

Can there be a worst blog awards? I'd just like there to be an award nomination process I could finally place in.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:02 PM on January 3, 2002

Personally, I would like a Most Interesting Back-of-the-Head Webcam Shots category.
posted by Succa at 9:07 PM on January 3, 2002

Actually, is the time right for a "Best Essay About Kottke" category? These are the questions I can't answer, friends.
posted by Succa at 9:11 PM on January 3, 2002

Where's the remorse, I ask you? Where?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:20 PM on January 3, 2002

the "Best Meme" category

Shouldn't that be, by definition, "worst meme" ?

Is there such a thing as a good Internet meme??
posted by mkn at 9:36 PM on January 3, 2002

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but it seems to me that "Language is a virus" is perhaps the best meme of all time. Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:48 PM on January 3, 2002

I wonder if there's a "Best Hijacking of Community Weblog as an Outlet of Personal Expression Because the Individual in Question is Too Much of a Wingnut to Bother Learning the Grandma-Level HTML Required to Set Up His Own Freakin' Geocities Site and Thus Stop Bothering the Nice Folks Around These Parts with the Not-Quite-Pithy Little Quips and Quasi-Curmudgeonly Asides That Enable Him to Harbor the Delusion That He Is Really Not the Complete Turnip That He Appears To Be in Real Life".

If there is such an award, please consider my hat thrown into the ring.
posted by Optamystic at 9:59 PM on January 3, 2002

Alamut is Good.
posted by rodii at 10:01 PM on January 3, 2002

How about the "Most pithy and original satire targetting A-listers" award? Huh?
posted by Poagao at 10:07 PM on January 3, 2002

-probably not relevant to the current topic, but must say this-

For someone like me, who is not terribly clued in about the Nomenclatura of weblogging, the amount of vitriol that Kottke seems to attracts appeared shocking. People whose posts/weblogs I otherwise like, who seemed to have great wit, tend to get quite ugly when his name springs up. I was idly browsing thru the archive here last night and was unpleasantly surprised. And he is here again, today!

Is it that there are two cliches? and one cliche' doesnt like the other? Kottke's weblog appeared pretty decent and didnt appear to contain any ugly stuff as such. If he is not a nice person, who cares? Isnt this more about what you create/do rather than about the person?

The best way to make something go away is to ignore it. .


posted by justlooking at 10:13 PM on January 3, 2002

ah, as soon as someone mentioned kottke, it all went downhill. working somewhat like the kuro5hin effect, any mention of kottke is sure to have people coming out to express their dislike... sylogge's SDB comment made me laugh though, as most regarding him tend to (no offense to him, i'm a regular reader of uss clueless.).

i'm going to fill out my nominations later when it's not so late, and plan to nominate people who never get attention... it's a lot more interesting this way. it'd be cool to see a list of all the people who were nominated though.. (not sure if nikolai does that?)
posted by lotsofno at 10:29 PM on January 3, 2002

does anyone actually visit that many web logs? it seems to me like unless you are friends with the owner, just about all of them (outside of mefi) are pretty boring.
posted by mcsweetie at 11:02 PM on January 3, 2002

Zach, I believe you have rediscovered Russell's Paradox.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:31 PM on January 3, 2002

the reason people visit kottke (or maybe it's just me) is because, well, its more "normal" then what others expected (and easier to accept and digest). and i think it might be the same reason people dislike it ("what?! what so good about it!?")

it's not great, and it's not bad, therefore making it readable, anyday, anytime. and lets be frank, most of our online time are quite boring and non-productive anyway.
posted by cqny at 11:32 PM on January 3, 2002

McSweetie, in this as in all things, Sturgeon's Law applies.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:34 PM on January 3, 2002

Lifetime achievement? Is that in blog-years?

Yeah, it's two years.

Why doesn't someone just ship Kottke a 20-dollar bill and call the whole thing off?

Because he wasn't even a finalist for Weblog of the Year last year. He needs to try harder. :)

Can there be a worst blog awards? I'd just like there to be an award nomination process I could finally place in.

Personally, I would like a Most Interesting Back-of-the-Head Webcam Shots category.

How about the "Most pithy and original satire targetting A-listers" award? Huh?

Word on the street is that Dave and Leia may create the 2002 Anti-Bloggies and they need suggestions...

it'd be cool to see a list of all the people who were nominated though.. (not sure if nikolai does that?)

Sorry, I don't publish it because it could lead to massive self-nomination by people looking for a free link from a popular page.

Is there such a thing as a good Internet meme??

What you say?
posted by Nikolai at 11:37 PM on January 3, 2002

Um, could someone enlighten me as to why this Kottke fellow is so disliked? I have a minor blog on pitas, but am quite in the dark as far as the higher politics of blogland go...
posted by Charmian at 11:47 PM on January 3, 2002

Charmian: His site is insanely popular, and of good quality. It seems unfair to many that these aren't balanced; that he should either get sink to only good popularity or step up to insanely good quality.
posted by skyline at 12:02 AM on January 4, 2002

Which is nuts.
posted by skyline at 12:02 AM on January 4, 2002

Mcsweetie, I read random blogs pretty regularly for a few weeks at time, as the better ones provide an interesting peek in at lives and sensibilities other than my own.
posted by dong_resin at 12:12 AM on January 4, 2002

You know who I really hate? That guy Yahoo. His site gets a shitload of hits, and his design and content are just obvious and trite. I'll nominate him for an Anti-Bloggie.

Everybody else vote for Manila as "Best Merchandise of a Weblog".
posted by anildash at 12:34 AM on January 4, 2002

Which is nuts.

Well, I hardly think it's nuts to want such a thing. I think it'd be great to live in a weblog meritocracy, where all Really Good Stuff is magically discovered and embraced with open arms by all and more marginal material falls by the wayside. Of course, it'd be a bit nuts to ever expect such an idealized system to actually exist in the real world... but still, it doesn't seem like an unreasonable pipe dream.
posted by youhas at 3:19 AM on January 4, 2002

Two words : toboggan porn.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:02 AM on January 4, 2002

"does anyone actually visit that many web logs? "

In the old days before weblogs.com changed from crawl to ping, Jim Roepcke had me listed as a "mega-reader," along with other folks. I know I read many more than 90 now.
posted by anitar at 11:44 AM on January 4, 2002

The problem with saying "best blog" is that "good blog" is so subjective. What about topic blogs? There's a blog that's all about soup, 24/7. It may have the best links about soup, be the most needed resource out there for soup fans. But if you don't like soup, then there's no point in visiting it. Same if you had a blog about heavy metal. People who hate or have never listened to it won't get your blog. They can't evaluate the quality of your links, or know if you really know your stuff or are making it up. It's like all of those blog review sites (have you seen them? Most of them are jokes, either intentional or not): they can't deal with these kinds of topic blogs, because half the entries and links, no matter how good the links are for the intended audience, make no sense to someone not in it.
posted by Charmian at 1:55 PM on January 4, 2002

one reason kottke might get so many hits is his selection of links - it's easy to go from there to dozens of other decent sites. It kind of makes it feel more like a center than lots of other places which are just as good.

Obviously you could just save all the ones you liked to yr browser, but a)some people don't like to keep track of massive amounts of links, if it can be easily avoided, and b)some people like the idea, the feeling, of a community center, a place connected to everywhere else, the middle of the spider web, so to speak.
posted by mdn at 2:07 PM on January 4, 2002

So you're saying Kottke is some kind of arachnid?
posted by crunchland at 2:17 PM on January 4, 2002

EXactly. Or possibly some other subset of arthropoda.
posted by mdn at 2:52 PM on January 4, 2002

Two-part post:

I. I know Jason Kottke is from Minneapolis and I know Leo Kottke is from Minneapolis. Any relation? I don't read Kottke, but I've heard of him and always wondered.


II. Word on the street is that Dave and Leia may create the 2002 Anti-Bloggies and they need suggestions...

This is a horrible self-post kinda thing, but I created a blog that (I think) is very much in the spirit of an Anti-Bloggie. Don't know anything about the Anti-bloggies and I have to leave in 5 minutes. Not looking for a nomination either. Just thinking about it makes me laugh still. That's why I mention it. It's called Not Interesting. Pretty self-explanatory. "A collection of thoughts and facts that are not interesting. Exclamation points are not allowed."
posted by hootch at 6:13 PM on January 4, 2002