The “Eh?” list
Ladies and gentlemen, I am thrilled and indeed honoured to announce that there is a vital and cataclysmic new trend in the world of blogging (or the “blogosphere”, as I think you’re supposed to call it, if you don’t mind using completely ridiculous words). Forget everything you’ve ever known or thought about blogs, because this is going to change the world. Revolutionise it. Forever. Before tea-time. Possibly.
Like all the best ideas about blogs, this one was born in one of Gordon McLean’s comments boxes; in fact, it was this comments box aligned to this post.
So, what is this idea?
Bloggers of the world, it’s time for those of us who think that the hype about blogging has gone too far to stand up, issue a collective yawn, and declare ourselves. It’s time for us to return to what is, for many, the original impetus of blogging: publishing a lot of half-arsed links, fairly random wibbling about kittens and embarrassing internal dialogues on a semi-regular basis. It’s time to shout — well, OK, mumble — a resounding “No” to yet more posts which are nothing more than blogging about blogging about blogging. It’s time for the Nonentity Bloggers to make their presence felt.
Our manifesto will run something like this. Probably.
• I do this for myself, and if anyone else likes it, that’s a bonus (© every underachieving indie band in the history of music; but, you know, it’s a good principle to live by).
• What’s an A-list?
• If you’re so popular, why have I never heard of you?
• This is all very silly, isn’t it?
• Here are some pictures of kittens.
• Sorry, I appear to have fallen asleep.
• Er.
• That’s it.
As you can see, the manifesto is urgently in need of some clarification, in order that we can fit the salient points onto the back of our Nonentity Bloggers pledge card (available shortly in a strictly limited edition print run of five). So the manifesto will be the main item for discussion at the first Nonentity Bloggers Conference — shortly to be reported on with great excitement all over the blogosphere (ugh), because blogging conferences are the next big thing, apparently.
Unlike other such events, however, which seem to mostly be packed to the rafters with sickeningly confident people who think that they’re in the vanguard of The New Journalism and are about to lead us into a bright blogging future, this meeting will absolutely not consist of a series of seminars, the contents of which have previously been published online in a Wiki. It will not be available on your favourite RSS reader or streamed over the net as feeble, jerky video. It will not even have a photo group on Flickr. In fact, the only guarantee we offer is that at some point during the proceedings, there will be a discussion about different types of cheese. Because these things are important, obviously.
Shortly after our inaugural meeting, Nonentity Bloggers will disband in a blaze of glory / whimper of disinterest (delete as applicable). Not because of some huge theoretical disagreement over who’s A-list, B-list, C-list or shopping list, but because we really can’t be bothered. And because endlessly talking about blogging is all very silly. And because we’ve got sleep to catch up on and lives to lead. And because, nine times out of ten, those self-important bloggers who like nothing more than discussing their own self-importance are utterly tiresome and painfully dull.
Naturally, all of us here at Nonetity Bloggers HQ will be gravely disappointed — probably inconsolable, possibly even distraught — if this post fails to make it to the top of all the blog popularity indexes, doesn’t get linked to by every A-list blogger in the entire world, is ignored by The Guardian and the BBC, and doesn’t secure us an interview on Radio 4.
We are the Nonentity Bloggers. Join us today. We don’t want your money. We don’t want your time. We don’t even want your linky-lurve. We just want your sense of acute embarrassment.