Once upon a time, New York City was cool because artists could live here and sex was abundant. People would (and probably still do) come from all over the world to fuck and to produce art. I think this created a humanist dynamism that is globally recognized. Well, New York is no longer the creative engine that it once was. It's becoming more and more like Monaco, a place where only the very well-off and wealthy can afford to live and work. And the zone of total unaffordability is pushing out of Manhattan into the Bronx and Brooklyn ...
Last night, I attended the NYC Bloggers event at the Apple Store, organized by Jake Dobkin of Gothamist.
Blogging is still really new and pretty much free for most people. I wonder, though, how the emergence of more 'professional' and 'corporate' blogs and networks of blogs will impact what I believe is the cornerstone of blogging - social engagement. I fear that these "high-end" blogs, while clamoring for 100s of millions of readers and millions of dollars of advertising revenue, will eventually focus more on the dollar that pays for the space than the people who read (and, to a lesser extent, write) the content. Eventually, I fear that their CMSs will become more insular in the name of 'protecting' content but at the expense of being compatible with the CMSs of the 'proletariat' blogs.
And what about the designers? So little of the conversation last night focused on the people who give blogs their juice (i.e. visual appeal, feature set). I certainly didn't hear Jason Calacanis share any of that advertising revenue with anybody but his writers.
So, apparently blogging will turn into another form of media that's not invested in giving everyone a voice. It seems like professional blogging is about making already prominent voices even louder. Is blogging becoming (or has it always been) a yet another tool for the 'haves' and not the 'have-nots'?
And what about the spaces in our society that these professional blogs create? When John Lee railed against Gawker in his Africana.com article this February, I sensed it was a bit informed by homophobia, but I really understand his premise. In this world of professional blogging, we don't represent or describe ourselves - if we are mentioned at all. It reminded me why I agreed with Aaron McGruder cutting up at the Metropolitan Club - white people creating familiarity and feeling too comfortable about engaging race without having anything to back it up other than a cursory knowledge of current pop culture. Really, though, what I'm describing is just another manifestation of democracy in a white racist society. You can be white and produce media in which people of color become just the topics of conversation distributed to millions, at whim, without any involvement of people of color. Whether or not those same people of color are consumers.
I usually never watch the Oscars, but I did this year with some friends. I wonder - don't white people get tired of looking around the Shrine Auditorium only to see other white people when they KNOW that's only a PART of their industry? I wonder the same thing about "Friends" - don't white New Yorkers cock their heads to the side sometimes and say "Hmmm, what's missing from this description of New York?" And I wonder if Choire Sicha (pronounced KO-ree SEE-sha) ever ponders, "Gee, if Black people read and write blogs, why don't they ever show up at these events?"
I think blogging will lose its potential (which, I feel, is still a really large potential) of social engagement if an investment isn't made in it by the people at the top of the game. The ability of a blog to almost instantly garner a large audience is what makes it so feasible for business, but blogging is not like any other form of media that has come before it. Interacting with your audience (and finding ways to help your audience interact with each other in your space) is integral to blogging's hotness. Otherwise, blogging will become merely another one-way publishing tool, perpetrating populism but reserved only for those with connections and access to capital.
For me, the highlight of the evening was hearing Meg Hourihan talk about using blogging in after-school programs to get kids to write better. I really want to hear more about that.
Definitely cool to see a few other Black faces in the crowd. I think I counted five, when they were talking about the technology stuff. I don’t know nothing ‘bout CMS or XML.
I hear exactly what you’re saying, and it’s something I definitely wanted to give more of a voice to. (It’s hard, when we’re supposed to talk about technology, to articulate our social aims.) But I think the good news is that those of us who built the tools helped inform the culture of blogging, and assuming we can keep doing that, our interest in being inclusive might some day pan out.
Thanks for the great feedback, and yeah, I’m hoping we can get some events that are a little less homogenous. Maybe not being in the Apple Store would help.
Oh, and I just wanted to mention my this blog of substance http://afronetizen.blogs.com/afronetizen/ (My cousin-in-law, Chris Rabb started this site.) Maybe we could have a “brown blog” event! Yeah, I think I might try to organize something like that.
Donald, I’m disappointed that the panel was so cau-casual and hipster-ish. That only reps a small, small slice of bloggers in NY.
I was doing an article on bloggers in Harlem and I found that many of them use xanga, livejournal, and other super simple blog tools that the weblog elite turn their nose at. Perhaps the next meet-up should have people who use and develop for those tools. That user base seems to be less techie, darker skinned, and (I figure) poorer than the group who came to the Apple store.
I was one of the black faces in the crowd yesterday, and despite the fact that I 1)live right around the corner from the apple store, 2)have been blogging for about six years, and 3)don’t wear that oh so menacing hip hop attire black guys in new york sometimes wear, I nevertheless felt very unwelcome there. sure, some of it was base line new york techy elitism, but I had more than enough weird looks shot my way to know that a big black guy was ‘out of place’ for many who attended the event. also, how about this: what’s up with the NYC Blogger event being 95% white men?? this is the most diverse city on the planet, and the blogs in NYC ‘do’ reflect this, so what gives? and to anil, a brown blogger event is a nice sentiment, but if I have to attend special ‘brown’ blog events, then I’d just pass.
p.s. I found it uncool that when, during the last panel, after the moderator joked about choire sicha’s name being hard to pronounce like blogger ron mwangaguhunga (a joke that I did find amusing), a bunch of white faces snapped my way looking for me react—either like I was ron himself (I look nothing like ron, by the way), or maybe just to see the reaction of a black guy to the joke. to me this illustrated the weird lack of color at the event. seriously, any place else I might blow it off, but for nyc this is just plain weird. also, let’s put race aside for a sec and deal with gender. BY FAR most of the blogs I’ve encountered on the net are by women. Why were only two women represented last night? another weirdy weirdness twilight zoney kinda thingy there…
finally, (yeah, I should be blogging this, but I like this thread), aside from my personal political quips, my overall feeling on the event was best summed up by Judith Weiss when she said, “it really felt like a mid-90s dot com masturbation-fest where many of the folks in the room were seeking validation of their peers rather than information on where the movement is headed” (her blog: http://www.hfienberg.com/kesher/20040502kesherarchive.html#108368100998941407)
“RIO”, while a lot of your points are cogent and relevant, I don’t allow anonymous comments on my blog at all. You said you’re a blogger - why didn’t you add your URL? Anyway, please e-mail me to provide at least a working e-mail address or I will delete your comments. Thanks …
Also, there’s a group of mostly Black bloggers that have been talking about getting a meeting together pretty soon. If you’re interested, check out the Blog Family Reunion Mailing List.
Rio, I think your first two comments are related. That room was packed with some “name” bloggers, so I think you were getting checked out the same as everybody was. Not because you are black, but because you might have been Ron. People were just looking for hints that someone, anyone else was someone they should meet.
Well, we pay designers to work on our blogs but since they don’t work on them on an ongoing basis we don’t pay them a revenue share. However, we would be open to doing this I guess… best jason