A Weblog is Like a Washing Machine
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo is one of the sharpest and most clear-sighted commentators on American politics who ever ran a weblog. A trained historian and a journalist by profession, he has a firm grasp of current affairs and an admirable knack for analysis.
This week, he was honoured with one of The Week magazine’s first annual opinion awards. While he usually sticks to politics, he went out of his way to tell this little episode, which happened after the awards ceremony when he met one of his personal heroes, the renowned historian Arthur Schlesinger, and found it hard to give an account of weblogging:
To be polite Schlesinger’s wife asked me to explain to them just what a blog is. And though I get this question pretty often, it turns out to be a rather challenging one if the people you’re trying to explain it to don’t necessarily have a lot of clear web reference points to make sense of what you’re saying.
I ended up telling them that it was something like political commentary structured like a personal journal with occasional reporting mixed in.
Now, as I was explaining and watching the looks on everyone’s faces it was incrementally becoming clear to me that this was playing rather like saying that something was like a washing machine structured like a rhinoceros with the occasional sandwich thrown in. And, as Schlesinger himself had said rather little through all this, it was also dawning on me that being one of the four guests of honor at this little event was providing no guarantee against making a bit of a fool of myself.
I have to define weblogs practically every time I tell somebody about Tawawa, and it’s never easy. Even David Winer has a hard time saying what makes a weblog a weblog, and I’m not sure he actually succeeds. I believe that the best theory of anything is its history, so I sometimes find myself telling the story of who did what and when, and who introduced which piece of software and what that software did to shape the practice of weblogging, etcetera and so forth — it just tends to go on for a bit.
So maybe it’s more useful to stick to comparisons: a weblog is like a big party thrown at somebody’s house with a bunch of conversations going on at the same time. A weblog is like a diary, except that it’s indistinguishable from a diary. A weblog is like a web directory, except it has fewer dead links and better commentary on those links, and more timely links anyway, and, above all, it orders those links chronologically instead of ordering them by subject categories. A weblog is like a Japanese breakfast with miso soup, pickles and rice, except you don’t run the risk of having natto served up with it.
Comments
pketh :: January 19, 2004
most of all I think, a weblog is what you make it. It can be all those things, some, or more. It all depends on the author, which is what makes them all unique I think. I’ve never thought all too hard about defining the word weblog as I’ve fortunately never had to. But, coming up with a blanket definition that covers ALL of them is most definitely impossible
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But natto is so tasty, firm and nutritious… :)