Lance Mannion answers “THE” question (”Where are all the women bloggers”), and in the process, punctures a water main:
I don’t think the reason for this is sexism, although sexism always seems to come into play when those top male bloggers try to explain why they don’t link to more female bloggers.
I think the reason is an extreme narrow-mindedness—or,to put it more flatteringly, a laser-like focus on a single aspect of human behavior. The top dog bloggers are almost autistically obsessed with politics as it’s practiced in Washington D.C.
[…] Name your favorite female bloggers and then go over their last twenty or so posts. Odds are very good that at least half those posts, or more, have nothing to do with what is going on inside the Beltway. But look at Kevin Drum’s last 20, or Josh Marshall’s, or Atrios’.
Then look at the types of posts on other bloggers’ sites that they link to. The top dog male bloggers almost always link to purely political posts.
Meanwhile, Avedon Carol, although most of her posts and links are political, regularly links to bloggers posting on a wide-range of subjects
When male bloggers talk about this, they don’t discuss it as if there’s a difference of focus. They see it simply as proof of the essential soft-heartedness—by which some of them mean soft-headedness—of women. Women aren’t up to the hurly burly of political debate, is the implicit and sometimes explicit message.
(By the way, if you happen to think this way, then you haven’t read Shakespeare’s Sister.)
But the actual weakness is that of the top dog male bloggers and their most fiercely loyal readers.
They have all been consumed by the debate.
They don’t have any space in their heads anymore for anything other than politics.
Now, I admire them all and I’m glad they’ve chosen to fight the good fight. And obviously they are all intelligent guys who know what they’re talking about.
But, frankly, they are kind of dumb.
And dull.
Dumb in the way anyone who becomes too specialized is dumb. Dull in the way anyone who can’t talk about anything but his or her own obsessions is dull.
I realize that I have been somewhat obsessed, as late, by the Downing Street Memo. But I don’t want this blog to become all-politics, all-the-time.
So I want you, dear reader, to know that no matter how closely I’m following a particular political issue, you will always be able to find pictures of monkeys licking popsicles and people eating out of toilets on The Tattered Coat, alongside disquisitions on Tom Cruise, Waingro, poetry, and supermarkets. The truth is that this blog is an evolving project whose contours are constantly being re-articulated.
Like Lance, I tend to enjoy blogs that have a variegated, eclectic focus, blogs that surprise me on a regular basis. And I consider myself a writer, not a wonk. I’ve tried being a wonk over this last week . . . it’s exhausting.
But I have noticed that blogs that have a laser-like focus on a particular topic — whether it is politics, celebrities, or feminism — are more likely to find an audience, and to accrue links. My guess is that single-focus blogs feel more comfortable linking to other single-focus blogs because they can depend on the content being relevant to their own readers.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Do you find single-focus blogs boring? Or do you tend to visit such sites more often because you know what you are going to get? And which type of blog are you more likely to blogroll?
14 Comments on "Are You A Writer or a Wonk?"
Moni:
I find myself going more toward blogs that have a variety of topics. I do visit the major political blogs, but I like variety. thank God for the Monkey licking popsicle pictures ;). And I *loved* the poetry posts in April that you did, too.
Dave:
Keeping reader interest is definitely an issue. Personally, I also gravitate towards blogs that have some variety. But not so much because I get bored with the others…
A blog that’s consistently focused on one topic makes me think that the author has a specific agenda he/she is trying to push. There’s a very thin line between expressing opinion, and using a blog to manipulate readers. I would much rather read someone relating their experiences and ideals, than trying to craft a message to impact readers.
Even if the agenda is in line with my beliefs, manipulation of any kind is not a positive approach. Just my two cents.
Richard Cranium:
Tough questions, Matt.
The A-list lefty blogs (and you know who they are as well as I do) tend to feed off of each other. There’s very little cross pollination. Occasionally Kos, or Atrios, or Gilliard, or one of the other A-listers will toss a bone out to the B or C lists by way of a link, but that’s not a frequent occurance. You know that as well as I do.
And that’s fine, as far as it goes anyway. That’s one reason I rarely link to an article that Markos wrote (although I visit dKos daily), or Atrios, or Gilly, etc. Some of the best writing and “action initiation” on the left is being done by the B and C listers. The BBA is a great example.
But look at the BBA blogroll. There’s some blogs that are very conspicuous by their absence.
Look at the activism that Brad Friedman has done at bradblog, and then go count how many times he’s been linked to by the big boys. So, it ain’t a matter quality, or quantity. It ain’t being a man or woman blogger. It’s being part of the clique, and it’s a (I believe) self-regulated and controlled environment by the A-listers.
And that’s not necessarily bad, don’t get me wrong. It’s the organizational nature of “early adopters”, which all of the A-listers were (with one or two exceptions). The clique develops, and it has to be self-perpetuating (and aggrandizing) to continue to function at a high level. Once the clique is established, it’s very hard to break into. Again, I don’t think it’s a man/woman blogger thing.
I’ll give you an example. John Aravosis was a B-lister until JimmyJeff broke. He’d been operating in relative obscurity until that time. All of a sudden, he owns a titillating story, he’s a Beltway insider with some connections, so the big boys notice and now John’s a part of the gang. As well he should be.
Wonkette fits much the same criteria - Anna Marie was viewed as pretty much of a gadfly by the A-listers until the Washingtonianne thing busted loose last year. All of a sudden, she was noticed, and became an A-lister. (But even in her A-listiness, she’s still not “one of the boys”.)
The women who are doing just outstanding analysis and blogging know who they are. I don’t have to list (cough cough) Linsday, Susie, all the ladies at Blondesense, Roxanne, Jeanne D’Arc, the ladies at B3, Fracesca, etc….they SHOULD be A-list, every one of them. And they are — but kind of like the LPGA is to the PGA.
I know my reply is a bit scattershot, but hope it answered some of your concerns in this and your other post about Gilly.
The bottom line is that I don’t depend on Duncan or Markos or Kevin or Josh or (gasp) Yglesias or Wolcott to send me traffic. My blog is not one of the “kewl kidz”, and probably never will be. I depend on blogs like yours, and vice versa, I hope.
Keep up the good fight!!!! :-)
Richard Cranium:
Oh, and to answer your base question - I like to think I’m a “writer”. ;-)
Robert Rouse:
Matt,
I know how you feel, if I only wrote about politics, I’d go stark raving mad. Anyone who visits my blog knows I use it to rant or rave about whatever strikes my fancy . . . and I tend to keep my fancy sticking out far enough to get struck by anything that passeas by.
JLo:
Just a quick note to echo what Richard Cranium–who I would consider a “fine writer”–mentioned in his post. Echo chamber, groupthink…we’ve been over all of this before. As for the femmes, name two women…hell, name two teams…playing in the WNBA. I don’t know about you, but I can’t do it, and it’s not because they’re not great athletes.
As for single focus or variety, I’m not sure I’d choose. I think I like variety, but ArmsControlWonk.com is one of my favorite blogs, and it focuses on a fairly narrow issue. Read this post to learn why. For what it’s worth, the variety on Tattered Coat is a daily must-read.
Robert Rouse:
JLo makes a good point. there are several great single issue blogs on the web. And I, as a reader enjoy reading them. But to me, it’s still variety because I read a variety of single issue blogs. In addition to A Little Left of Centrist, I also administer a single issue blog (Hoosiers Against Bush In Tandem). But, once again, I have Left of Centrist to fall back on. Even Einstein took time out to roller skate.
Now, back to the question at hand, if someone reads something you posted, you’re a writer. If they learned something from reading it, you’re a wonk. But if your post remains unread (this is where I do my really bad impersonation of a philosopher), you’re a tree falling in a silent forest.
Richard Cranium:
Jlo - you dog.
I’ve just burned the last 20 minutes skimming through armscontrolwonk.com. Thanks for the pointer!! Looks like a regular read to me…could get addictive…
Matt:
Thanks, everyone for these great responses.
Moni: they were fun to do.
Dave: I doubt that you meant to imply this, but just to be clear: I would never promote a cause that I didn’t believe in or otherwise try to manipulate readers.
JLo: Los Angeles Sparks and New York uh…New York Fire? Metrostars? ….damn! But I can name at least a few WNBA stars: Lisa Leslie, Rebecca Lobos, Sue Bird, Dawn Staley? Tamika Holdsclaw…damn.
Anyway, thanks for the kind words. I’ve really enjoyed reading publicOrgtheory as of late, too.
RC: Blogging is the new high school, I guess.
The Blogebrity A, B, and C list is a joke — literally — part of the Contagious Media contest to see who can draw the the most unique visitors during a given period of time.
It says something about the blogosphere that we’ve all internalized the “A,B,C” stratifications without protest.
The truth is that the A-list bloggers have a stake in protecting their place at the top of the heap–there is significant amount of money and media exposure to consider.
I agree with you that A-listers have something of a closed clique, though, like Lance Mannion, I think it has something to do with the fact that they like to read people who write like them–and that, like all of us, they like to read their friends. It is, as you say, a self-perpetuating cycle.
Lance seems to suggest that there shouldn’t be any such thing as a single-focus blog. I’m not sure I agree–I like having places to go when I want to find out more about political issues. We need wonks.
But as his post, and your comments point out, there is so much more to the blogosphere than wonks. The best blogs, to me, are about building communities of readers. The bigger the blog, the harder it is to do that.
Philly Future is a great example of that–look how many people it has brought together.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, Richard, ASZ is one of my favorite blogs. You guys do a superb job of not only reporting what’s news, but offering intelligent and informative takes on what’s going on in the world (and I say world, because, like Will, I admire the work you’ve been doing on Latin America lately).
And Richard, you are that rare breed: a writer AND a wonk.
Dave:
I definitely didn’t mean to imply that anything you have posted is manipulative, Matt. My sincerest apologies, because rereading my comment, it can easily be taken that way. Your posts are clearly geniune, and always make me think about issues from a different angle — that’s what keeps me coming back.
Blogs serve a new and important role in raising public awareness. In essence, we have the power to go around traditional information “gate keepers.” We get to delve much further into every story through instaneous dialogue, than we would have ever gone individually reading a series of articles in a newspaper. Blogs may not replace traditional news outlets, but they enhance the hell of them and most importantly they keep the “gatekeepers” on their toes. The buzz generated around the Downing Street Memo has finally launched it out of obscurity and into the mass media news cycle.
But then there’s another side to all of this. There are very specific things that can be done to affect the number of eyes that see this message on the internet. I’m talking about things like coordinating comments between blogs, shaping of content and postings to maximize exposure on other sites, dummy postings to boost search engine ranks.
So, if the message is truthful, and, as I believe, debunking the unfounded Iraq/Bush mythology of the right is a moral imperative… does the end justify the means? More and more, I wonder if this may be one of the only ways to counter the consistent misinformation and distortion of truth that has gone under the Bush administration.
But if progressive groups mobilize around this issue and go down the path of crafting a buzz, do we risk losing credability down the line? What will be the exhaustion point for grabbing mainstream media attention?
Matt:
Thanks, Dave. I think that different bloggers will answer your questions differently.
For myself, I don’t think that the ends justify the means you outline. Using dishonest means to promote an honest message undercuts the message itself.
First, it give opponents an opportunity to point out the dishonest act. In an age when wingnuts have full sway over the media, I think that hurts the cause more than helps it.
Secondly, I think that such actions aren’t in our best interests. At the beginning of the Big Brass Alliance, some people suggested Google bombings. I did not participate in them, partly because I feel that doing a google bomb would be an insult to readers of this site. Practically, such potentially effective means of propaganda hurt the cause because if google finds out about a google bomb, it can react by lowering the search rating of the blog/website — and thereby render any other good work said blog does ineffective.
Thirdly, I routinely argue that when the Bush administration promoted torture as an effective means of interrogation, it surrendered our country’s moral authority. We can’t torture people, and then say that we shouldn’t be part of the World Court because we’re morally superior to the rest of the world.
I don’t want to take part in a dishonest action, because I want to be able to criticize dishonesty among the republicans without leaving myself open to charges of hypocrisy.
But that’s just me. Plenty of people will argue that a “by any means necessary” approach is in order.
Dave:
Well said. I completely agree.
pia:
I have been trying to leave politics out of my personal blog because I do have many interests, and like to explore them. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to not include politics.
Find that all the right wing people who call me names, just increase my readership, because their more rational readers come to see how stupid I am, and stay to read.
flawedplan:
This is a plug, if not cool, go ahead and delete with no worries, but I can’t resist what looks like an opening.
I’m a woman writer who founded and administers a message board that has leftie/arty bloggy tendencies rooted squarely in the humanities.
I promote it as an eclectic little reality-based hide-out for advocates of mental health, sans the psychobabble. The kind of people drawn to the board tend to be seekers; basically consumers and ex-consumers of mental health services, and what they find is creative expression, supportive self-help, slightly snotty friendship and old-school scholarship for all manner of bio-psycho-social disturbance that reprise the human condition. That covers a lot of territory.
I have no clue why there is such a glut of blogs and online forums, but so few hybrids like mine around.
It’s a poser.
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