The Dartmouth Review of Blogs

By Kevin Parkman | Monday, May 9, 2005

"Tonight we went to see Quebec's own Stars in Burlington," wrote an acquaintance of mine recently about a concert she had attended. "The openers were a bit weak on the musical talent scheme (gosh, so distracted, my UGA is on the other side of the wall moaning in extreme sexual pleasure so you can hear the pointed stress of each and every thrust, the pitch becoming higher and tension mounting even as he does)." On and on this interwoven discussion continued, culminating, if you will, in a parenthetical, "oh GOOD she CAME, my punishment is over, now the waning breath and a few sighs and it is done."

Appalling stuff in any case, particularly given that this copiously copulating pair lives just below me, but now consider that this description was contained not in personal correspondence but in a weblog readable by anyone with access to the World Wide Web (I'll spare you the privilege).

This same author also provides us with a series of poetry composed in homage to those known only as the "Disgusting Ones." To quote from the seminal "FatIV":

Basements won't stay globules Intent on using public printers. Roll along stairways and leave radioactive Turtle ooze in your wake. Paper and ink words would float and so too would you, on air or water buoyant From gross expansion of cells, blubber oil, ink and water.

Unfortunately, it seems the Interweb is these days filled with reflections from Dartmouth students that are equally unwarranted and far less well-written. There was, for instance, this reaction to recent campus news from Ken Wells '08, as posted on the collaborative blog "The Randomness" (how four '08s that each have their own personal blog have the time and desire to maintain a collaborative is beyond this old man, but anyway):

"I pick up today's copy of The Dartmouth. On the front page, there is a report that Tom Brokaw, the news anchor that I most want to have sex with other than Anderson Cooper, is giving the Class of 2005 commencement address on June 12, 2005. I leave campus on June 8. **sniff, sniff** Excuse me for one second. **leaves keyboard** **screams in pillow**

Thanks for sharing, Mr. Wells.

I could go on like this for pages (and you're welcome to troll these websites for similar inanities), but there is, I think, a larger point. Take, for instance, the recent discussion begun by Chris Jones '08 on his personal blog.

Jones is a homosexual, as we know from a post at the Randomness where he rhetorically opined about his experiences during admitted students' weekend:

Why am I so sketchy??
Who knew drinking a whole Mad Dog and smoking (sic) a J would impair judgement (sic)? Couldn't someone have told me?

The Dimensions dance party was interesting, to say the least. A prospie practically attached himself to me. What was I to do? Ugh....shouln't (sic) have been intoxicated. I hope all is well. It's one thing if he's a student here next year. It's anothing (sic) thing if I'm a sketchy perv preying on prospie minors. Sheesh!

Will anything every go right for me?

Sorry, that's my rant for the day.

"Good-evening bitches."

Sheesh, indeed, and much less for Mr. Jones' behavior than for his judgment in publicizing it, particularly as an official representative of the Admissions Office, where Mr. Jones is a tour guide.

Anyhow, in a post attacking the use of "That's So Gay" to describe his Windows Media Player, Jones wondered why "these awefully [sic] sexist and homophobic phrases [are] so popular in our contemporary vernacular."

He went on to proclaim, rather melodramatically, that

the [sic] revolution toward human equality, civil rights, and an end to hate will march on. be [sic] sure to do your part and peace will arrive one day. it [sic] will come striding in on the backs of those people who have worked so passionately, diligently, patiently, and tirelessly to further the movement and be agents of tolerance and progression. these [sic] are my heros [sic]. i [sic] will do my best to live in their example, and so should you.

The culprit, it turned out, was Mr. Wells, who responded over at the Randomness, not by smoking and a J and drinking a Mad Dog, but by retorting that "gay" has "SEVERAL meanings, homosexual being only one of it's slangs (not a primary definition of the word)...Now, was I implying a sense of displeasure with WMP or was I accusing it of homosexual behavior? well [sic], that's an easy one that even you can figure out laura [sic]. Of course I wasnt calling WMP homosexual."

Mr. Wells concluded with this attack:

Seeing as how you all of a sudden don't perpetuate negativity, I guess this means the end of me being called a MWT. Yes, that's right. Hypocrisy is a sunnuva bitch. And a quick word about the term "MWT" and some others that I've heard you, laura [sic], and chris [sic] throw around. They send not-too-nice messages to the community of overweight people. Can't big not ever be beautiful? Also let me say to Chris and Laura that you two are more and more everyday finding yourselves a part of the overweight community. No specific examples to [sic] specific body parts needed.

Touché, though I still haven't the faintest clue what "MWT" means.

This little virtual tête-a-tête, however, reveals many social ills of which such blogging is symptomatic. Firstly, Mr. Jones, Ms. Reyes, and Mr. Wells all seem to be well-acquainted with one another. Why wasn't this discussion conducted in person and or even over personal email? How atomistic has our technology-driven society become that people are willing to so solipsistically bare their souls over the Interweb for all to read?

Secondly, not only can I not imagine a great historical figure (I'm thinking of Daniel Webster here) publishing such thoughts, it's difficult for me imagine him even having them. It's safe to say the personal journals of yesterday, where great men and women were concerned with issues beyond themselves, were quite different from the self-centered blogs of today.

But, lest I wax too philosophical, let me get to my main point, which is that such blogs are a downright waste of time—for author and readers alike. One might object that the reader of personal monologues shouldn't be surprised to discover the drivel described above, but the same self-centered superfluousness pervades even the "serious" blogs at Dartmouth. Julia Bernstein '07, who publishes the general-interest blog "Outvox," concluded a recent post concerning Dartmouth's gender pay gap with "Note to self: When considering jobs in Academia in the future, stay away from Hanover."

I'll be sure to email you a reminder, Ms. Bernstein, as well as making a note to myself that you'll one day be an Important Figure in Academia.

There are, certainly, some very good blogs out there on the Interweb. At Dartmouth, The Dartmouth Review's own Dartlog allows discussions begun in the pages of the paper to continue interactively and permits the staff to supplement our biweekly publication with daily updates of campus events. Other campus publications have similar pages, as do many national ones; check out former executive editor Stefan Beck '04 at The New Criterion's "Armavirumque" and alumni Trustee petition candidate Peter Robinson '79 on National Review Online's "The Corner."

There are good student blogs as well, particularly Dartblog from Joe Malchow '08, which, while somewhat derivative of Instapundit, is shockingly disturbingly comprehensive for a college freshman. Speaking of Instapundit, this blog by Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds is the leading success story of this new form of media, catapulting him from obscurity to a well-deserved position of influence.

The "Volokh Conspiracy," a collaboration led by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh that includes alumni Trustee petition candidate Todd Zywicki '88, is another example of very qualified individuals circumventing the mainstream media in order to influence the public debate.

I will even admit to being an occasional (okay, a frequent) reader of Gawker and Wonkette, ventures from blog mogul Nick Denton that dish celebrity gossip in New York and DC, respectively.

However, contrary to claims that this new craze constitutes a positive democratization of the media, it remains unclear that natural selection indeed prevails in the blog-o-sphere. Lost in the hubbub surrounding CNN executive Jonathan Klein's derisive comments about pajama-clad bloggers being inferior to credible members of the mainstream media—made as a team of bloggers, led by the Dartmouth alumni at PowerLine, exposed the documents supposedly discrediting Bush's National Guard Service as forgeries and embarrassing for Klein because Dan Rather resigned over the incident—is the fact that most bloggers are pajama-clad know-nothings.

Sure, there are a few good ones out there, but as our Dartmouth survey attests, there are many more bad ones. Much has been made of the fact that traffic on selected blogs now rivals the circulation of some newspapers and the viewership of television programs. But what of the fact that, unlike mainstream media outlets, the distribution of blogs is severely left-tailed, making the average blog is far less useleful than the average news outlet.

The democratic nature of blogs is indeed good in some respect, as the Rather incident poignantly illustrates, and entrepreneurs like Denton (as well as mainstream media crossovers Hugh Hewitt and Andrew Sullivan) have gone a long way towards establishing credible blogs. However, before we all go blogging up a storm, perhaps we should be accompanied by one useful relic of the hated mainstream media—an editor.

The Dartmouth Review of Blogs

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