Modern Blogs Are Still Rubbish

Just lately I've found myself more than a little, shall we say, jaded, by what I've been encountering on the web. Now, I know the whole point of blogging is to allow anyone to publicly publish their thoughts, but there really do seem to be an ever increasing number of incredibly self-important blogs out there. I wouldn't mind, but they are posting utter shit, dressed up to look as if it is significant. Indeed, the whole world of blogging seems to be getting ever more incestuous, spending most of its time commenting on itself and agonising over its own perceived problems - as if anybody in the real world gave a toss! Just recently, for instance, I've kept running into blogs obsessing over some incident in which a teenaged travel blogger writing for The Guardian got flamed with lots of negative comments, apparently impugning his abilities and alleging that he only got the job through nepotism (his father is writer on the same paper).

This has led to all sorts of online hand-wringing, debating whether this sort of negative commenting is wrecking the net. Others are claiming that it shows people don't want 'amateur' content any more, they want proper, professionally written content. This, in turn, has led to a defence of blogging's cult of the amateur. The bottom line is that nobody outside of a handful of bloggers really gives a flying fuck. For starters, as far as I can see, the blogs and message boards at The Guardian, in common with most other sites of the type, are dominated by a closed coterie of regulars who most certainly don't represent the opinions of the wider web, let alone the public. As far as negative commenting and flaming go, there's no need for a debate on the subject, the people who do it are knob heads. The problem is easily dealt with through stricter moderation. I'm afraid I don't subscribe to the widely held misconception that keeping the web free means allowing anybody to express any views they like. That isn't free speech. Indeed, allowing morons with offensive 'opinions' to dominate message boards and comments with their dribblings is itself a threat to free speech, as it crowds out rational discussion and tends to discourage many people from contributing.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the level and nature of much online discourse is being dominated and distorted by a relatively small number of 'big name bloggers' (who are still nobodies in the real world), who have a vested interest in keeping the whole blogosphere parochial and self-obsessed. Frankly, I'm glad not to be a part of it and have no intention of joining in. Sleaze Diary's splendid isolation will proudly continue!