This is the time of the year for lists - for newspaper and magazine thumb-sucking of high order and long tradition, recycling news into trends and reviews and lists and lists. Lo and behold, the hottest word of the year, according to the denizens of the dusty back offices and rotting cubicle warrens of Mirriam-Webster, is "blog."
Which means, of course, that blogs are yesterday's news. Dead. Unbreathing. Anachronistic folly of the followers. Mere digital entrails. We're talking lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Fury lay buried dead. The crooked crosses and headstones, the spears of the little gate, the barren thorns, the whole deal. The Dead. Another trendline I've followed to the downward side of the peak.
Oh the celebrations are rife, of course. The bloggers - the three million as they say - are smooching under the mistletoe of media misunderstanding. They changed the world in 2004. The bloggers were major forces in the election. They retired poor old Dan Rather. They're clever. They're changing Iraq for the better. The world is watching. Bloggers will 'break news.' The newsmagazines are breathless.
In the words of St. Nick - who is doing wonders for my Amex bill this time of year - ho, ho, freaking ho. Humbug, I say. Are there no prisons? No work-houses?
It's simple, fellas. The most-heavily trod bloggers write about blogs. If you comment on blogs, you're in. (Just like back in the day, when Websites covered Websites). Bloggers blogging blogs - ie, bloggers blogging off. Then there are the sex blogs (covered in this week's NYT magazine), clearly related. The political blogs. And everything else.
Look, we've got personal journals. We've got trade publications. We've got news indexes. We have opinion and nuanced commentaries and professional writers. But blogs? Dead. Blogs are Websites, folks. The software has made it easier. Now let's fill out the death certificate and move on. And no more blogging about blogs.
And so I'm announcing my retirement as a blogger. This is my last blog post. Thanks for the memories. Blogging audiences are the greatest audiences in the world.
At least until tomorrow - or the next day.
No more, damn you! I told you there'd be no more....what the hell did you expect?
