November 15, 2000

12:08 PM

Blogma2001: A Manifesto for Better Weblogging

Virulent Memes's riposte.
posted by Mr. skullhead (42 comments total)

That's the trouble with getting on pedestals.

Time for compelling content and whatever trendy words you might think of.
posted by john at 12:16 PM on November 15, 2000

anybody wanna talk about napster?

or nader?

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 12:20 PM on November 15, 2000

I was entertained by the manifesto-- not in actual agreement-- but entertained. That is until I went to his actual blog and read the first two posts:

(1)Anyway, I'm going to buy fuckloads of CDs _and_ a discman-type thingy that's more resilient than my '97 Sony today. (Umm, contravening my own Manifesto, but anyway. Hypocrites have more fun.) I'm going to bore you shitless about them later on, no doubt.

(2)Everybody's doin' it, doin' it, doin' it...: Skykicking redesigns as well.


One, in his words, backpedlling on his own Manifesto. And Two is the LinkyLove he kind of lambasts...

Can't we just let everybody do whatever they want?


posted by schlomo at 12:35 PM on November 15, 2000

I think we should have a contest to coin the stupidest term with blog in it. Just today, I've seen blogma, blogtastic, bloggeuse, and blogorrhea on pages linked off of Metafilter.

I submit blogarithm, electroencephablogram, epiblogue, gastroenteroblogy, and medulla oblogata for your approval.

Of course, we don't really need a contest. We could just let the press and the blogging community stumble across them organically.
posted by waxpancake at 12:39 PM on November 15, 2000

I submit: blogectomy - as in "A blogectomy would make that site a lot better."
posted by gluechunk at 12:50 PM on November 15, 2000

What else do you expect from Aussies? They obviously don't have any semblance of a reasonable sense of humor. Just look at Neale.
posted by daveadams at 1:01 PM on November 15, 2000

One word: Bloggystyle
posted by Succa at 1:06 PM on November 15, 2000

Bloglodyte? A troglodyte with a blog?

I've been thinking of putting down a few words about blogs myself recently but it would never actually occur to me to tell other people what to do. It might piss me off slightly that other people's blogs get more attention than mine but blaming them for that seems pointless.
Or was the guy just joking?
posted by davidgentle at 1:22 PM on November 15, 2000

I thought it was hilarious, though I was looking for guidelines, preferably far-fetched and difficult to attain.

In the spirit of Dogme 95, how about:

1. Design elements must be entirely of one's own making.
   
2. All coding must be done by hand in a text editor.
   
3. No superfluous design elements. Animation is forbidden.
   
4. All blog entries must be completely factual. No exaggeration or changing names to protect the innocent.
   
5. Clever aliases are forbidden.
   
6. Blogs not following Dogma rules may not be linked.
   

Other suggestions?

Oh, I submit: Bloggunity. Gack.


posted by frykitty at 1:25 PM on November 15, 2000

Damn. Now I'm gonna be hearing
"Who's in the Blog House?
[meme] [meme] [meme]"
in my head for the rest of the day.

I love the idea of putting together some sort of blogliography, but I think you have to at least use the word in a sentence (er, in blogtext?)...
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 1:35 PM on November 15, 2000

blogiography? nuh-huh. I like biblioblography better, because it sounds like something Homer Simpson might say.
posted by grimmelm at 1:58 PM on November 15, 2000

y'know, there would be no "a-list" if people would stop saying there's one. No one within the "a-list" has ever seriously proclaimed they were a member of any elite.

It's all these people on the outside saying "look at them, they're elitist! they won't let me in their secret cabal!"
posted by mathowie at 2:00 PM on November 15, 2000

To follow such rules is a blogcrafice.
posted by john at 2:05 PM on November 15, 2000

hmm. well then matt, how do you explain THIS?
posted by judith at 2:23 PM on November 15, 2000

Blografice, bloglodyte, bloggystyle...this over-use of a word to say many things is feeling familiar.

Ah yes: SMURF.
posted by frykitty at 2:26 PM on November 15, 2000

Kerouac's belief and technique for modern prose is all you need.
posted by sudama at 2:45 PM on November 15, 2000

Outside of *what* Matt...

;^)


posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 2:48 PM on November 15, 2000

Of course, this is also proof that Matt's a member of the cabal.

posted by daveadams at 2:55 PM on November 15, 2000

I'd suggest the word blogouisse, er, bloggouissie, er, but I can't spell it.
(I feel like such a bloghead...)
posted by BozLee at 3:14 PM on November 15, 2000

BLOGEOISIE. I guess.
posted by BozLee at 3:23 PM on November 15, 2000

Nice to see you're all paying attention. The first rally will be on Saturday!
posted by Graham at 3:48 PM on November 15, 2000

Watch out for the blogshit!
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 4:43 PM on November 15, 2000

Blogfrastructure. Weight-balanced blogary tree. Blogolatry. Blogduck. Card catablog.

This whole blog-coinage thread reminds me of a Smurfs comic I had when I was a wee lad, in which the Smurfs split into two bitterly-opposed factions at loggerheads over the right way to translate compound words into Smurf. Should it be "fruitsmurf" or "smurfcake"?
posted by grimmelm at 5:56 PM on November 15, 2000

Which faction won?
posted by gluechunk at 6:11 PM on November 15, 2000

They probably ended up calling it "smurfsmurf."
posted by dogwelder at 6:20 PM on November 15, 2000

Or from SouthPark - the Marklar (or something like that). I guess all conversations must be in the form "blog blog blog? blog, blog, blog blog blog. Blog blog!"

This whole thread is making me smile again!
posted by skinnyjimmy at 8:46 PM on November 15, 2000

Er, Grimmelm, shouldn't that be "at bloggerheads"?
posted by bradlands at 9:22 PM on November 15, 2000

totally agree with frykitty that the Dogme 95 film manifesto is totally different.....blogs aren't films...This whole argument isn't about technical or artistic purity, but Popularity, and attacks against the "Holy Circle" of web sites....and that is just too petty.

Web pages aren't films.

arrrg. so many things to take more seriously than who is friends with who, or who links to who.


posted by th3ph17 at 9:39 PM on November 15, 2000

i think it should be "smurfcake"
posted by centrs at 10:25 PM on November 15, 2000

bradlands: point well taken, but I prefer "loggersmurfs"
posted by grimmelm at 10:34 PM on November 15, 2000

Well who wouldn't?
posted by bradlands at 10:55 PM on November 15, 2000

So does this mean that Kottke, Ev and Meg are the noveau riche bloggers? If so...cool!

I say: Down with the old regime and in with the new! Someone call Lars von Trier to make the movie.

Here are some supplemental rules for the manifesto:

1. Thou shalt not reference conspicuously consumed items (examples include Palm Pilot cases, Nokia cell phone enhancements and $200 lip gloss) within a blog.


2. Thou shalt not blog about what one had for lunch.


3. Thou shalt write in complete sentences, applying publishing house reference books to the blog.


4. Thou shalt adopt an angry stylistic tone.


5. Thou shalt avoid linking such odious mainstream sources such as Yahoo News and Salon.


6. Thou shalt not comment upon what another blogger thinks of your blog.


7. Thou shalt refrain from adopting such silly concepts as non-negative blogging.


8. Thou shalt, under no circumstances, use the words "cool," "great" or "peachy" to describe your state of mind.


9. Thou shalt implement an anti-bourgeois, populist take within the blog to quash the blog elitism.


10. Thou shalt not lust after other bloggers.


11. Thou shalt place frequent bolding, underlining and rollover HTML tags within blog entries to distinguish the blog from less pure blogs.

Viva Blogma 2001!
posted by ed at 2:02 AM on November 16, 2000

Blogrilege, n. taking the Holy Blog in vain.
posted by holgate at 3:39 AM on November 16, 2000

Why don't you people get a life?
posted by Graham at 5:27 AM on November 16, 2000

(um, sorry to actually discuss something on-topic, but I only got around to reading the article now :-)

These decadents, however, have nothing better to do than talk about themselves

BWAAaAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAA.

Holy shit, that's the funniest thing I've ever read. What the fuck else are you supposed to do with your blog? Am I not allowed to have a journal-style blog where I talk about my opinions and my thoughts and my life? Must I only post links? Screw that noise, there's other people out there who troll for links far better than I'm able to.

I write what I want to write, same as this supposed a-list. Yeesh.

(note, the "a-list" urls mentioned above are not for you. If you need to go to metafilter or blogger, use this and this instead. :-)
posted by cCranium at 6:10 AM on November 16, 2000

Ed, I was with ya, buddy. Right up until #10. Dang, I'm always having trouble with one commandment or another.
posted by bradlands at 8:26 AM on November 16, 2000

Who - Who! Who let the blogs out! Who - who...
posted by camworld at 12:52 PM on November 16, 2000

Cam's a little frisky today. His weblog must have gotten him laid again. ;-)
posted by bradlands at 2:47 PM on November 16, 2000

What else are you supposed to do other than talk about yourself?
Isn't that a slightly reduntant question? Given that whatever you say it's always going to reflect something about you? So whenever you talk you're talking about yourself to some extent. The trick, I would imagine, is to say things about something else at the same time. Which is easy if you're not doing a diary blog. There are other options than ldoing a link log.
posted by davidgentle at 3:47 PM on November 16, 2000

Who put the blog in the bloghouse? You did, you did, baby...
posted by heather at 5:43 PM on November 16, 2000

test
posted by DoublePostGuy at 11:54 AM on November 22, 2000