NPR: The third wave speaks.
The Man Is Gone, But Long Live The Blogosphere. If NPR thinks having a warblogger generation personality eulogize an original is a proper send-off, they’re terribly misinformed. Those bloggers continue to have difficulties respecting our original stakes in the metacosm - they only grudgingly, parsimoniously recognize archetypes before themselves. Most don’t know, because they never looked. They had all the tools we worked so hard to shape, already.
We all had a go at shoving “blog-” onto every word we could find in the early days. I myself am credited by National Review for first coining ”blogotry.” If I may speak bluntly: Big f-ing deal. I’m sure Brad would agree with this assessment. If all you’ve got is a word as a value-add to the metacosm, you’re not doing your job as a weblogger. Brad was a huge personality among our generation of webloggers, and the gap he leaves in our ranks is unbridgeable. He was a personal brand before personal brands existed - yet he remains little-known. The media completely overlooked Anita Rowland’s passing, and she also was a major archetype and influence in weblogging. Who was Anita Rowland? If you don’t know, you know little of weblogging history.
NPR, you need to get someone from the previous generation of webloggers (yes, they exist) to eulogize Brad; you’re doing the man a terrible disservice. Alas, I didn’t know him well enough ... I should have gone down to SXSW. Others did, and those are the people you need to tap.
The media, as a whole, would do well to look more closely at the late 90’s/early ‘00’s, to recover the original, true history of weblogging.
Later: Rebecca does a much better job, with one hand tied behind her back.
Comments:
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Next entry: The Hollywood Reporter: Another fresh take on Bond. >>
Well said…