If this comment made today on an old post about the plight of migrant workers here in Korea is real, it makes me very sad.
I’m sorry Qaiser, I have no job to offer you.

I’ve discovered thanks to my gadgetry over on the right that I’ve been shortlisted for a Bloggie this year, in the Asian Weblogs category, along with such noble and noteable friends and neighbours as BWG, Cheesedip, Weblog Wannabe and Geisha Asobi. Last year, when I was nominated but didn’t make the cut, I threatened to perform acts of random and extreme violence on anyone who actually voted for me. Which had a certain chilling effect on my popularity, I’m guessing.
This time around I’m not sure how to react, given my recent semicoherent rantings about popularity and such. The cool kids all feign disinterest, I know. Me, I guess I’ll just sincerely thank whoever nominated me, and thank those who put me on the shortlist, and have a celebratory beer or 12.
[Jeez, now I feel like I oughta actually write something more about Asia….for those who are interested in that stuff, my musings about Life in Korea are here.]
Edit, the next morning : I guess I should make clear that even though I am pleased to be given some recognition for my fiddle-f–king around here over the past coupla years or so, I am firmly aware that popularity contests of this kind are a massive wank, and destructive to community feeling in a multitude of ways.
I do not take this seriously. What I do take seriously is the conversations among very smart and very kind people in which I’ve been allowed to take part as a result of having this weblog, the things I’ve learned, the skills I’ve honed, the friends I’ve made.
I’ll let my nomination stand, and I will gladly accept your vote, with thanks – because, goddamnit, I kick ass – but I say to you once again, with flashing eyes and floating hair, I do not for a freaking second take this seriously. If I win (which I’m pretty damn sure I won’t) it won’t be because I’m better than any of the others nominated, or better than a multitude of other creative people out there howling into the void, it’ll be because I bribed people with sexual favours I have way too much free time, and spend it on this pointless but enjoyable hobby, and have settled in for a wee drink or two with friends all over the virtual place in my time.
But it’s life that counts, and the careful stewardship of your soul, my friends, not pretty words and tricked-out css. And beer, of course. Crikey, let’s not forget about the beer.

Recently, Burningbird, who’s been having some major stresses in her life and thus can be forgiven for being a bit cranky, had this to say about blogrolling and linkloving, and the whorespiders like Daypop and its ilk :

After being a smartass :

I actually started to think about it, again, and why I…well, if not disagree precisely, see things a little differently. Part of the reason it was on my mind this morning was that the night before, I’d made a post here, linking to the PBS show on blogging (starring OW™ and Anil Dash and others), with the sole comment being ‘Oh, f–k off.’ (There was also some goofy sh-t about Orson Welles eating your soul, but that’s not germane at the moment.)
I deleted that post almost immediately – there goes my blogging verité credibility – but my unthinking nasty response, seemingly at odds with what I believe about the no-impact socialization implicit in what we do with links, continues to disturb me a bit. I’m happy for Anil and Oliver, although I think they are two very different kinds of blogistanis, in many ways, which was perhaps the point, in part.
I’m not attempting to characterize either of them, here. I’m just following my somewhat muddled thoughts where they take me.
Where they take me first is on a bit of a tangent : there are those with ‘personal web sites’ or journals or blogs who pay little to no attention to what others are doing or saying. There are those too who whore themselves – who use links exclusively to curry favour, or elusive popularity, or the strangely compelling ghostly yardstick of blogly self-worth that is measured in hits. There are bloggers – a lot of them – who seem to do give recognition to others primarily – or exclusively – to increase their ‘juice,’ and spend most of their time trying to attract that sort of attention from others.
I mean, most of us do a bit of that sometimes, probably, and sit somewhere on the fence. But the true ‘look at me! look at me!’ folks – amusing and enjoyable as their antics may be – are the ones who spoil the game, because when some people start to think they can win a game that in its very nature is designed not to have winners, it starts to poison interaction. It’s just like Real Life™, ain’t it? Having a drink with a group of folks, one (or worse, two) of whom will not stop jumping up and down and pulling faces, or steering the conversation inexorably back to themselves – that just ain’t no fun, and it kills the joy of socializing.
I guess that it’s this kind of behaviour that set BB off. It’s this kind of behaviour that makes me want to withdraw from the whole game, too, sometimes. But I don’t. ‘Cause there will always be folks who are more into self-aggrandizement than conversation, and folks who are more into grandstanding than socializing, and you have to choose to get with ’em, or ignore ’em. Hell, get a few drinks into me, and I can be one of them myself. But one can choose to ignore the siren call, and the bleating of the self-nominated popularity contest participants, and get on with the hardcore relaxation, and the slow to and fro of languid conversation.
I think my kneejerk reaction to the PBS thing was somehow spawned both out of my utter contempt for the Old Media and my feelings about blogging and bloggers in general : that we’re people who are sure that we have something to say, whether or not anyone else thinks so too, and damnit, we’re going to say it, and self-promote so that as many people as possible are going to hear it. If that’s one of the core motivators for all of this for many people, it’s only natural, annoying as it may be sometimes, that there is going to be a subset that push the envelope, and cross the line into Human Brands. And I have always been resentful of people who are recognized for jumping up and down and shouting ‘look at me!’. I’m not accusing Oliver or Anil of doing this, I hasten to add. I’m just thinking this through, aloud.
Despite this, I do still think the blogosphere is a meritocracy. Merit is most assuredly not measured in hitcounts or rankings. It’s pretty clear that hitcounts and blogrankings are a factor of how good a self-promoter you are, how much juice your virtual neighbours have, and only in small part how much merit can be found in your actual creative output. There are bowel-looseningly good writers out there who get little to no traffic, and there are determinedly mediocre ones who are inundated in visitors. This, we all know. Life ain’t fair. But merit in this place (an old discussion about what kind of place it is comes to mind), one way or another, whether it’s quality of ideas or writing or simply the honest goodness of the person behind the words shining through, well, it seems to me that that’s recognized eventually, organically. Mostly.
Back to the issue of linking and blogrolling and Blogdexery, again taken from my comments on Shelley’s post of a few days ago, and written in part in response to this comment from Mike Golby, who said :

I said, in semi-rant mode :

I don’t think of this as a zero-sum game, smart-assery aside. It’s an infinite game – a game in which one of the tenets of play is that the game should never end, and in which a goal of play is to keep everyone playing.
The more observant amongst you might notice that I’ve got, if not the longest, at least one of the longest blogrolls in christendom blogaria. This is due to simple policy : if you link to me, I reciprocate, when I find that link. If you pull me off your blogroll, I don’t care. You linked to me at some point, and that hasn’t changed. If you publicly declare that I’m a lame goat-blowing sh-tweasel, I might pull you, but then again, I might not. It’s not a zero-sum game. There are no winners, and that’s the way it’s meant to be. It’s not political, it’s just common courtesy. When someone speaks to you, you acknowledge them. If they engage you, you have a conversation. If not, you make eye contact, nod, and move on.
In weblogging, the nods leave tracks, is all.
[Edit : I sense that this is a bit disjointed, but I don’t have time to edit it right now, so I’ll just leave it up, with apologies if I have been unclear.]

Now be nice, or Orson Welles will eat your soul!