Emptybottle.org

Blog ain't no damn focus group
Blog means thinking for yourself
You ain't Zeldman with your css
When a shill still lives on your front page

Blogger whores
Blogger whores
Blogger whores f--k off!

Blogger whores
Blogger whores
Blogger whores f--k off!

If you blog to sell, get outa here
You ain't no better than the journos
We ain't trying to be media
When you ape that crap it ain't democracy

[Repeat chorus]

Ten blogs praise war, what a man
You link each other, the advertiser wins
Stab your backs when the cash means all
Trash wonderchicken if you've got real balls

You still think banner ads look cool
The real sellouts run your schools
They're bloggers, journalists and geeks
In a real blog putsch you'll be the first to go

[Repeat chorus]

You'll be the first to go
You'll be the first to go
You'll be the first to go
Unless you think

My objections to the idea -- not so much my attacks on individuals concerned, which, I hope, are clearly just over-the-top screeds intended as much to entertain as anything else -- are rooted in anger and contempt at the continuing Monetarization of Nearly Everything (with apologies to Tom Coates).

I am aware of the tightrope to be walked when talking about this kind of thing: it has become common received wisdom (which I trust less and less in these times) that those who argue that applying monetary value to something has the consequence of immediately robbing it of all real value are foolish hippies and incompetent idealists. It is de rigeur to ridicule them -- of course they are laughable loons! How counter to the deepest streams of our culture the idea that money is anything but the highest measure of worth, or that adding value is not necessary the same as adding worth.

But I'm a great one for lost causes and tilting at ethical windmills.

It doesn't bother me if someone makes the decision to use their web space to sell crap. They want to hawk Amway out of their apartment, that's fine. They go and slap vinyl ads on their car, or tattoo the McDonalds logo on their childrens' foreheads, well that's their prerogative. Go nuts, I say.

But in the process of doing so, they haven't lost my trust (which I may or may not have had reason to extend, at some earlier point) so much as diminished the possibility that we may ever agree in any significant way about the fundamental questions of value and of the good which dominate the way I attempt to live my life.

Which, in effect, may mean that the possibility of me respecting them for what they do (as well as, possibly, what they say) has leaked away. Not that they should really give a damn, but there it is.

Of course, all that is pretty much the extremity of the matter, which is where I tend to hang out, it must be said. In the case of Chris Locke, for example, I know that he's been to the edge of the abyss, financially, and I don't begrudge him his naked grab for a few shillings from whatever corporate scum he can shake down, and more power to him.

Less well do I know the circumstances of anyone else who deliberately whores out their personality for dollars -- because, when in comes down to it, most of the currency of the blogoblogland minted until recently has issued from the forges of personality and talent, which has been fine and right -- and I don't begrudge them doing so, honestly.

[Hell, I put up a tip jar 6 months back or so, begging for a few bucks to pay for my next year's hosting. Almost entirely killed my desire to keep doing this, though, that did, much as I appreciated the generosity of so many.]

But I do think that what money touches, money turns to sh-t. That may not operate on the level of individuals, or it may. I don't know, and it's almost certainly the case that no-one does. But I do think that to monetarize something is to lose sight of the true value of that thing.

So I'm waiting for the next Great Leap Forward I guess, me and Billy Bragg, marching off into obscurity, secure in the knowledge as we become irrelevant that at least we stuck to our guns.

On the other hand, I may just start blogging for dollars next week. I need the damned money.