Two years ago I posted a hypothetical conversation in which a blogger tries to explain blogging to a non-blogger and, essentially, gets nowhere. Since that time, we have had the Dan Rather debacle, which acquainted news watchers with the terms blog and blogging.
While it is easy to find estimates of the number of blogs in the world, which run into the millions, we must occasionally remind ourselves that bloggers make up a miniscule portion of the population and that probably more that 99.9999% of the people in the world are not bloggers or even blog readers.
Nevertheless, the phenomenon continues to grow and, and has even developed its own jargon, which can fairly be called “Blogspeak.” Imagine, if you will, that you are a non-blogger, non-blog reading person listening in to the following live conversation between two bloggers (a blargument?), which could easily take place at a Blogmeet.
Blogger 1: “Hey, what the hell is going on with your blog?”
Blogger 2: “What do you mean?”
Blogger 1: “You de-linked me!”
Blogger 2: “Yeah, I did, and you deserved it.”
Blogger 1: “What are you talking about?”
Blogger 2: “Well, for openers, you leave trackbacks on my posts and you don’t link to the post where you left the trackback. And, how about the time you flamed me and didn’t link to me? Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Blogger 1: “All I said in that post you’re talking about was that your posts have become little more than link-dumps, and, despite that, you remain a Large Mammal, while us Crawly Amphibians are trying to build traffic by posting content.”
Blogger 2: “Traffic? I’m surprised you even raise the subject, because you have Site Meter set to keep your stats secret. And, speaking of traffic, you seem to try to attract traffic to your blog by bloviating in off-topic comments on my blog and sucking up my bandwidth.”
Blogger 1: “Are you saying that I’m a troll?”
Blogger 2: “Damned straight I am. And furthermore, speaking of bandwidth, how about all those times you hot-linked my images?”
Blogger 1: “Well, if I’m that bad, why did you link to me in the first place?”
Blogger 2: “I saw that you blogrolled me, and I gave you a reciprolink. However, I’ve learned my lesson. You’re nothing but a link whore and a disgrace to the Sphere.”
Blogger 1: “Well, I’m going to return the favor and de-link you.”
Blogger 2: “Like I give a damn. You got no traffic to send. In fact, I’m going to Blacklist your shitty little BlogSnot site.”
Blogger 1: “Go ahead, because I’m going to ban you too.”
Blogger 2: “Friggin’ link whore! Troll!”
Blogger 1: “Goddamn blogsnob!”
Onlooker: ”Are these guys assholes, or what?”
God, we really ARE dorks, aren't we??
Posted by: Dana at October 22, 2005 04:07 PMI sat and laughed my way through this post Jim. It's so stinkin' true too.. lol
... Dude, that was beautiful..... truly..
Posted by: Eric at October 22, 2005 09:39 PMSix months ago, I wouldn't have understood a word- now it's crystal clear. Oh, man...
Posted by: Sharon GR at October 22, 2005 09:45 PMI sooooo need to figure out the trackbacks......yesturday. Otherwise I will be having this conversation soon.
Posted by: armywifetoddlermom at October 22, 2005 11:04 PMexcelent work.