Laurel Wellman thinks blogging is dumb.

July 2, 2002 12:22 PM

Laurel Wellman thinks blogging is dumb. Well, you knew that was coming.
posted by brookish (31 comments total)

OH MY GOD! SOMEONE HATES AND/OR LOVES WEBLOGGING!

*BANG* (That's the sound of me shooting myself in the head)
posted by mark13 at 12:31 PM on July 2, 2002

Also on Blogroots.
posted by brownpau at 12:36 PM on July 2, 2002

I didn't get a very strong 'blogging is dumb' sense out of the article. It was more like 'blogs are being used as an excuse to talk when one has nothing to say'. Whatever you think of the article, ya gotta love bits like this:

"Hi! Whassup??? Nothin' new around here, just napping -- :-D!!! Going to the mall with Jenna!! LOL!!!!!!!"

Yes, just smell the quiet desperation.
posted by holycola at 12:37 PM on July 2, 2002

So I was blogging along and this blog blogs up to me and blogs, "Blog! What the blog is blogging, blog?" I blogging didn't blog what to blog, so I blogged my blog and blog. Then, the blog blogged all blog, and blogged down the blog, blogging me a blogging blog in blog. I blogged there to blog and blog only when blogging blogged for.

Blog me?
posted by almostcool at 12:45 PM on July 2, 2002

Blog off, blogger.
posted by ColdChef at 12:48 PM on July 2, 2002

laurel wellman was insanely funny when she was skewering the sf cognescetti for the sf weekly.


Now that, well, she's one of them, uh, she's, uh, kinda (read: very) unexciting.



but i'm glad she's pulling down the cash. she was a great writer. i'm just going to believe they're putting the screw to her over at the chron, and, uh, just keep faith that our other favorite snarky columnist will preservere and be destitute all her life ('course, i don't know, maybe she made some bank on that suck thing.).
posted by fishfucker at 12:51 PM on July 2, 2002

Interesting that she begins by saying "So I've decided to volunteer my services as The Chronicle's first Weblogger columnist."

Because that's been Mark Morford's gig (essentially) for years.
posted by emptyage at 12:55 PM on July 2, 2002

who?
posted by tolkhan at 12:56 PM on July 2, 2002

Sometimes blogging is dumb. Someone's gotta say it.
posted by nance at 1:02 PM on July 2, 2002

i don't mind a considered discussion on how blogging often IS dumb, but I just begin to get the sense that certain snarky columnists (and laurel is certainly not alone in this, see above) are getting into a tiredish old routine of pissing on everybody else's parade. Suck perfected the art and now, well, it's been done. mean-spirited punditry is so ... 90s.

however, i agree that much blogging, even a fair chunk of my own, is little more than participation in a huge virtual circle jerk. But so was working for a newspaper when i did that.
posted by brookish at 1:15 PM on July 2, 2002

however, i agree that much blogging, even a fair chunk of my own, is little more than participation in a huge virtual circle jerk. But so was working for a newspaper when i did that.

that's exactly my opinion. 1 out of a 100 blogs is good stuff, and that's about the same as anything else, whether that be books, records, etc. no one seems to be writing about the 1 though, which i find troubling.

this week i'm supposed to be interviewed by a canadian daily. i'm praying i don't crack open the paper and find another article on the uselessness of blogging. however, i'm not ruling out the possibility.
posted by dobbs at 1:27 PM on July 2, 2002

Humanity is just a big circle jerk, it's just that the participants change, and no one ever really has an orgasm.
Blogging and all that is just the idle chatter to pass the time.

Not that I think it's a bad thing.
posted by rocketman at 1:30 PM on July 2, 2002

You don't ever orgasm? I orgasm. I know some other people who orgasm. In fact, I'm pretty sure people orgasm.

Or was that a metaphor, or something?
posted by cortex at 1:35 PM on July 2, 2002

Dobbs, I though Catherine Seipp gave political/news blogs  a
pretty fair shake in American Journalism Review last month.
The old-media sniping is, I'm convinced, a backlash against the warbloggers'
"look at us, we're the future of journalism" crowing of late.



posted by nance at 1:47 PM on July 2, 2002

1 out of a 100 blogs is good stuff,

Yes, and unfortunately it's rarely the same one from day to day. That said, the argument that blogging is boring is a thin one coming from a newspaper columnist. They of all people should know how hard it is to come up with original, interesting thoughts every day. (To her credit, Wellman seems to acknowledge this, though mainly to imply that she'd welcome a break from being so damn creative.)
posted by me3dia at 1:52 PM on July 2, 2002

Blogging itself is a good idea. Most people who blog are dumb idiots with all the typical crap to say.

And then there are the comment posters... don't get me started on us.
;-)
posted by dopamine at 2:00 PM on July 2, 2002

Sturgeon's Law?
posted by john at 2:01 PM on July 2, 2002

nance, thanks for the link. excellent article and i hadn't read it before.
posted by dobbs at 2:07 PM on July 2, 2002

The thing one has to remember about blogging is that it's possible that some blogs aren't meant for the general public...some are just teenage girls who want their friends to keep on about their day....sometimes blogs are just that logs about what's happening in their day. It doesn't have to be pulitzer prize material because it's not meant to be pulitzer prize material.
posted by rlef98 at 2:18 PM on July 2, 2002

blog, blogging me a blogging blog in blog. I blogged

Sounds like someone is blogging a "bong-blog".
And what do you get when you take the words "blog" "blog"minus the o's & g's and add the double a's. Not that I totally agree.
posted by thomcatspike at 2:22 PM on July 2, 2002

amazing.
posted by ColdChef at 2:30 PM on July 2, 2002

I think thomcatspike is gunning for clavdivs' old job.
posted by me3dia at 2:31 PM on July 2, 2002

only thing worse than writing a newspaper column that looks down its nose at blogging, is being the latest newspaper columnist that has looked down its nose at blogging.

this elitism has turned my martini.
posted by tsarfan at 3:18 PM on July 2, 2002

I thought the column was (mildly) amusing and well-written, unlike most of the pieces I've seen from journalists on blogs recently.
posted by gohlkus at 4:05 PM on July 2, 2002

i thought the column was boring, making it quite similar to my blog.
posted by howa2396 at 4:14 PM on July 2, 2002

"gunning for?" I thought it was already a done deal!
posted by majick at 4:19 PM on July 2, 2002

Blogs.... E/N sites... Personal pages...

Same shit, different pile. Like anything, there's good and there is bad. Find what you like, and stick with it.
posted by Dark Messiah at 4:40 PM on July 2, 2002

And what do you get when you take the words "blog" "blog"minus the o's & g's and add the double a's

Um...bla bla? I love rebuses.
posted by iconomy at 5:03 PM on July 2, 2002

The piece was fairly lazy, and no better for admitting it. But Wellman's a Bay Area treasure -- she almost can't help but be insightful, and she's a born writer. Since she left the SF Weekly, I hardly ever pick that paper up (her "Dog Bites" replacements were awful), though I must admit I don't make a huge effort to read her stuff in the Chronicle. (Steve Rubenstein is another great writer on staff there, though I haven't noticed his byline much lately ....)
posted by macrone at 6:13 PM on July 2, 2002

...clavdivs' old job.

clav's around. Just low key. He's Overlord For Life, isn't he?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:53 PM on July 2, 2002

Light-hearted satire has no place in the world of weblogs. The piece only serves to demonstrates this.
posted by kofisaffu at 7:34 AM on July 4, 2002