David Appell Is Andrew Keen Jr

Jay Rosen brought my attention to a post by David Appell, someone I don't think I ever read before. Basically Appell is arguing that 'amateur bloggers' aren't contributing to Western Civilization, and since they aren't 'experts' -- defined as someone who has spent a gazillion hours focused on the topic in question -- then what they are doing is a waste of everyone's time.

[from Quark Soup: Blogosphere]

Over the last six months or so I have been getting very frustrated with the blogosphere, and I find myself reading less and less of it. There just isn't much meat out there. Amateur bloggers just seem to spread useless gossip.

This is the Andrew Keen Cult Of The Amateur argument rewarmed. Appell, like Keen, seems to miss the whole notion of open discourse -- it's a big cocktail party, not just shouting from the pulpit, guys -- and the argument has an outright elitist agenda: if you aren't an expert, you ain't shit, so shut up.

He goes on to savage "professional bloggers":

And what's especially bad, "professional bloggers" seem so intent on posting 20 times a day that all of their individual posts are basically useless, conveying nothing whatsoever.

He details his dismay regarding Andrew Sullivan and Matt Yglesias (two other guys that I seldom read, either) suggesting that they suck because they a/ write too much, and b/ they write about things about which they have inadequate expertise, according to him.

Andrew Sullivan ripostes adroitly:

[from Do Blogs Suck?]

I think Appell misunderstands the nature and appeal of blogging. It's a form of conversation, not a medium of absolute authority. He writes:

It takes weeks and months and years to understand situations, to write from anything like a position of expertise. You don't get it by quickly flying out to Aspen and back, or by reading an article from the Brookings Institute or from Harvard's 321 course on Environmental Philosophy. It takes blood, sweat, and tears, it takes going out and looking at rivers, pouring over government reports and spreadsheets, hiking to the tops of mountains for the big picture, calling 25 people a day -- precisely the thing the blogosphere does least of.

You bet. Which is why this blog contains not just my musings but links to many other deeply reported stories, essays, specialist blogs, videos, and emails from expert readers, etc. Moreover, different blogs can do different things - and this one has evolved over the years from a purely personal diary of sorts to more of a broadcast hourly magazine. The point is that I don't expect or hope that any reader relies on the Dish alone. The Dish is a portal as well as well as a blog - to all the information and ideas percolating out there. And my role has evolved from purely an opiner to a web DJ of sorts, re-mixing and finding and editing the thoughts and images and facts of others.

I agree with Sullivan that the ins and outs of being a blog author has changed over time. I believe that blogging has changed the way I explore ideas, for example. While I still write big essays a few times a month and detailed product reviews on a regular basis, I also write more short snippets as things cross my transom. I don't believe that every post has to have a beginning, middle and end, and I don't have to tie things together in some conclusive package. It's a stream of consciousness, in a way, which matches the rise of social applications like RSS readers, instant messaging, and flow applications (like Twitter, Facebook, and so on).

I bet Appell doesn't use these tools much, and that a new mode of web based sociality is passing him by. He thinks blogging is just writing articles without a magazine paying him for it.

And I have long maintained that we are doing on the edge will be considered illegitimate, or crazy, or unintelligible to those stuck in the mainstream.

Comments

[Swan]

A point and a counterpoint.
Point: what defines an "expert"? One's contributions to a body of knowledge are what defines one as an expert. Who says what form those contributions should take?

Counterpoint: time is money. Following random banter can be a huge waste of time. Tracking the contributions of people who have demonstrated value in the past has the best chance to be fruitful. Those people will often be well regarded non-blogging experts, but the blogging crowd provides not only a possible "farm team", but also another medium for the top tier.

[David Appell]

Actually I do use RSS readers and instant messaging. (I even have a cell phone.) I haven't found Facebook to be very useful though, nor Twitter. (Twitter is pretty much the exact opposite of how I want to spend my day.)