In Response To Gerard Van der Leun

A well-known and highly respected blogger opted to respond to my Are You An Elite Blogger post, leaving some questions to be addressed here. Gerard Van der Leun blogs at American Digest and a brief, accomplished resume can be viewed here.

My post suggested that reading the two essays found at the first link above would permit one to determine whether or not they were an elite blogger. Gerard responded: I give up. I don't really know and I wrote one of them. Can I have a hint? After some joking in comments as to his not having said clue, I felt I owed him something more. For the record, the word elite was interjected into this discussion in an article featuring Roger Simon and Charles Johnson, noted here.

That readership and notoriety is making these elite blogs attractive to advertisers. Mr. Simon and his partner, Charles Johnson, who writes the popular conservative blog "Little Green Footballs", believe that forming a group of elite bloggers can be an even better moneymaking proposition as their collective site sees its readership and ad rates soar.

Elite can be defined as: a group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status. For purposes of a discussion on blog writing, I'll move from there to a working definition of thinking expressed extremely well in writing, yet lacking enough substance to qualify it as genuinely informed. In short, elitist blogging is thought disengaged from reality, or a construct of convenience. In essence, elite blogging produces posts of eloquent composition which, when de-constructed, aren't equal to the reality they purport to depict.

Among conservatives, this working definition is sometimes applied to the intelligentsia of the Left. They design wonderful things on an intellectual level, from welfare to universal healthcare, which ultimately prove impractical, or flat out unrealistic as they are grounded more in thought, than reality.

In essence, my position is that, as per above, Gerard's essay was elitist and would resonate with certain readers as such. It sounds great, but doesn't add up. Some comments on the entry seem to validate that opinion.

Gerard's essays states:

What you see is what you get not who you get; its what they say, not who they are.

Not who they are? With respect, acknowledging that you meant simply their names, I'd still argue something quite different. What people say, or even what they write is one thing, but who they are, what they do or have done is often quite another. Intellect without experience, or at least appreciation for it leaves a void. Witness this exchange excerpted below from the comparison essay by Jim Lowney.

Blair was making up stories about me in Bosnia and then said something about covering 9-11.

“So, you went right from the war in Bosnia to 9-11?” asked one woman. The woman next to her also eagerly awaited my answer.

I just looked at them and said not exactly. There was a six year gap between events. In all fairness, why should they know or care about the Balkan wars from 10 years ago? I was there, so it is matters to me, but I can’t fault anyone for a lack of knowledge about it.

The women, both 40ish and well-dressed, seemed nice and reasonably intelligent but disturbingly disconnected from the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. It was as if they had mentioned a class in college they once took and had some authority on the subject. I mean, did anyone actually “go to 9-11”?

Gerard's essay goes on to say:

Not that many months ago, when Roger told me, in essence, that he and Charles were "putting a band together" in the sense that they would found, fund and organize the top bloggers of the sphere ... And yet, only a few hours earlier, everyone was sitting in The Rainbow Room high above Rockefeller Center ....

With all due respect to NZ Bear, whose efforts I just recently applauded here, even by TTLB standards the top bloggers are far from organized under the banner of Pajamas Media, let alone sitting in the Rainbow Room that evening. Unfortunately, a real study of that worthy system, TTLB, shows a serious lack of reliability in tracking particularly non-partisan right, moderate, and non-political blogs.

By Technorati's rankings, only five or six of the top one hundred are currently even aligned with PJM. That's to their great credit, but it is far from the number to support such a blanket statement. And at most, there were likely only one or two in the room. So, your statement, everyone was sitting in The Rainbow Room creates an image of all the top bloggers sitting in one room, unfortunately, it's a myth. It doesn't equal the objective reality of the situation.

This next excerpt may be the most significant display of raw elitism in Gerard's essay.

... some didn't like the name, Open Source Media, and carped along about the "loss of integrity" when the company lost the working title, "Pajamas Media." These bloggers would be the ones who never had to present a multi-million dollar new media project to serious businessmen and make ad sales calls on serious media directors at serious advertising companies with serious ad budgets in the billions. Trying to get in the agencies doors to make presentations and sales is tough enough for any new venture. If you call and say you're from something called "Pajamas Media," that is a perfect formula for never, ever getting the appointment or even the call returned. "Pajamas Media" is a spiffy little name, a quaint handle, a warm notion, and above all two words that have "inconsequential" stamped across them in bright red letters. Sometimes you have to let the things of childhood go in order to make your way in the real world and to get a chance to run with the big dogs. Much in the way that kids get upset when you take a toy away, so a bunch of bloggers were upset a name rich in nostalgia but little else has to get put away. They were upset in less time than it takes a knee to jerk and that knee has kept on twitching. You might say that the group could have gone forward and, by God, made those big advertisers pay attention no matter how funky the name. Perhaps. But in general nothing is impossible to those who don't have to pay the bills, find the revenue, and do the work.

With respect, there's a short way and a long way to address the statement above - I'll try to be brief. What reality would cause one to make the claim above regarding the name Pajamas Media in light of the fact that the largest, wealthiest and most talked about Internet company today is named ... wait for it ... GOOGLE? Do serious people not take that name seriously? They seem to have done quite well with what one could call a silly name.

And what reality would cause one to make the claim above regarding the name Pajamas Media in light of the fact that the most frequently linked, and a very well trafficked website today as per Technorati is named ... wait for it ... Boing! Boing? And you even mention the name Yahoo in the article itself. Pajamas Media might just be the most concrete and adult-sounding company name Internet savvy movers and shakers have heard for a start up in years. Your argument against the name didn't have real weight once compared to the reality of the Internet marketplace.

Additionally, and quickly, as a sales and marketing professional with over 20 years of business experience, more than a few of them in the Fortune 20 dealing with multi-billion dollar transactions and accounts - I'd front for the name Pajamas Media over Open Source Media any day of the week, for more reasons than I'll bother to explain here.

Now, I am extremely mindful of wanting to keep this polite, and please believe me when I say I wish no lasting ill will from this exchange; however I must at least call your attention to the utterly patronizing tone of the emboldened text above - presumably directed at those very best and brightest of bloggers you just previously praised so highly.

That is a significant disconnect in my view, rendering all relevant passages into words without meaning because you contradict yourself so sharply. I can't trust it when I take it apart. On the one hand they are the best and the brightest - the next minute you are addressing them as children. Which is it? And then there's this.

And because they're so not sane, they've done the perfect akido move in the blogsphere(sic) and gone back to their Pajamas. Adios Open Source, we hardlly(sic) knew ye. I guess big media will just have to get used to it. Do you Yahoo? Do you Pajamas? Are we not men? No, we are Pajamas! We shall just push this flannel rock up the slope again and again.

Gerard, how can you possibly have those last two passages above back to back as you do? Actually, they can't stand together in one essay at all if one is to believe what you have to say on the matter. You went from utterly denouncing the PJM name, going so far as to suggest no one would even take it seriously, to, oh well, we'll just trundle on.

two words that have "inconsequential" stamped across them in bright red letters.

As a reader, I have absolutely no idea what you really think, or where you stand. Consequently, for me, there's no way to judge the prose as anything other than constructed to sell or support the needs of the founders for support in the face of their unexpected and forced decision-making as regards the name change. There's no genuine acknowledgment of a transition in your thought at all.

What in one passage is completely unworkable, becomes just fine in the next. So I simply can't feel any trust in what you've had to say about the matter after that. Its lack of logic renders it unreal. It reads great. It's sure to effectively preach to the choir. Yet, it doesn't withstand scrutiny, as it is simple opinion unsupported by any facts, or even consistency.

Believe me, this is purely a critiquing of the words and not the man. I was significantly impressed by your accomplishments in the short bio I linked. But blogging IS words, Gerard. And when dealing with serious issues, I struggle to make them as real as I can. Your positions as expressed in your words change so drastically in this one essay, they defy pinning you down to anything concrete. It reads great, yet doesn't add up.

There are many who would question the sanity of anybody, founders, staff or bloggers, aligned with Open Source Pajamas Media. You all know those people. They're the same people who couldn't understand why anybody would want to bid on line for the contents of America's basements and attics; the same people who thought buying a book you couldn't hold in your hands now pay the lease on a thousand failed bookstores across the country; ...

No, Gerard, these are not the same people questioning PJM - not ... even ... close. They are fellow bloggers - Internet savvy, been around the blog a few times, know what I mean, guy? And with so many adept at tearing the New York Times a new one, they don't much enjoy feeling there's some attempt to convey an unrealistic impression of something, especially when it's coming from one of their own.

It's better, much better, to listen to the calm and rational voices that told you to short Apple in 2003. Isn't it?

Perhaps for some, Gerard. But as for me, I prefer something that sounds more like reality over what I would call well-crafted rhetoric every time. In closing:

On a certain level, I'd offer those who ate the chicken, listened to Judith Miller blather about how great in bed the newspaper that betrayed her still is, and drank the Kool Aid at the W Hotel a steaming hot cup of that classic blog beverage, STFU. But they're bloggers and bitching is what they do. You might herd cats but that doesn't mean you'll ever change them.

Well, you're right about bloggers, obviously. lol And perhaps some of us never do know when to STFU. But while I'm somewhat unclear as to the meaning of your passage above, I will point out one fact: don't forget the origin of the phrase drinking the Kool Aide. No need to worry about those folks, Gerard - they're all dead.

Lastly, I think PJM as an ad syndication network is a sharp idea, which very well may succeed. And I also think the website will ultimately work out and make money for the enterprise. However, when it comes to issues around blog content and what it all means for blogging in general, as well as to individual bloggers, members, or not - I'm simply far from impressed with what I've seen to this point.

This post was taken down and edited for an attempt at brevity and hopefully more clarity before being reposted.

Comments

[FloridaPatty]

As is, outstanding! Enjoyed every morsel of it.

Thanks Dan.

[suzyqueue]

Dan - good post. Clear and concise.