Metablog

Smitten wrote a blog ( I admit it, I'm too damn lazy to find the link at the moment, I'll do it tomorrow) where she wrote that blogs tend to be like high school cliques. This idea intrigues me as I have myself been pondering the world of blogs. This is an undeveloped idea that I discussing with smitten this evening, and she encouraged me to post it. As I write it seems even less developed than I anticipated, but I put my faith in her.

Smitten's concept of the high school clique does seem apt, although not quite fully in the way she pointed out. For example, I find that I am strangely attracted to blogs written by bloggers on the Upper East Side. This revelation is not particularly shocking. The psychological concept of like attracts like has long been establish, but it does put a rather large hole in that the internet unifies the globe theory or that it allows for cross pollenation of diverse ideas and customs. It seems that most of the cross pollenation I get is from other single disgusted upper east siders.

It seems that the initial blog impulse could be tied ( and now I'm going to get really pompous so forgive me) to the salons in Paris where you have bunch of witty people driving each other to highest pinnacles of linguistic dexterity ( although not necessarily the deepest content). There was both community and competition, and often members used each other both to build off of one another as well as to punish and chastise each other in the salons. Of course with the huge number of blogs being posted the concept of an intellectual elite is destroyed. The beauty of blogging is that it isn't elite at its most base level, although certainly members may drive each other to excel and the "higher order" of blogs is extremely elite.

As I was talking to smitten, I realized one of the best comparisons would be to old vaudeville. There has been a lot of discussion about file sharing and copyright infringement these days, but it seems like for the most part the world of bloggers doesn't mind sharing inspiration, content, or format. For example, regularly lists and formats (like the five questions) circulate blogs. I have quoted other blogs here, and used the posts of others as inspiration for my own posts. Although generally I link to the original post ( or at the very least, the blog from which the post originated), it seems in the world of blogging, to "borrow" from another post to innovate or build on an idea is not considered stealing "intellectual property" but rather paying homage to those who have inspired you. Imitation is often accepted as the sincerest form of flattery. Marlowe and Shakespeare although "rivals" often used material from each other. In vaudeville, comedians often lifted skits or characters from each other, making innovations and changes.

So although in the blogging world like may attract like, it still leads to innovation and development and not stagnation because bloggers encourage others to quote and use material from posts.

What do you think?