Comments on: Ten New Voices - Number 4, 5, and 6

By: fp

fp — Sat, 19 Mar 2024 15:20:45 +0000

Thanks memer. I guess I’m at a point where I’d rather read thoughtful posts from conservatives than echo chamber posts from arch liberals such as myself. I’ll go read Avery.

By: memer

memer — Sat, 19 Mar 2024 09:58:58 +0000

ARJ, that would be some ignorant desperation indeed, if there’s a person out there who thinks that a blogroll packed with Top100 types might bestow coolness. I suspect the truly cool would want a roll full of (good) unknowns, avoiding any appearance of overdog worship.

In all the world, I think only Ali and Jordan are about the only overdogs you can root for and still keep your cool.

But, you’re right, it has been a long time since playground daze, so my memory of the cool rules may be foggy.

p.s. if you want a truly ‘balanced’ black conservative, i heartily recommend Avery Tooley’s Stereo Describes My Scenario. He’s a member of the same “Conservative Brotherhood” (tsk, tsk) that La Shawn belongs to and he’s a better writer (imho).

By: ARJ

ARJ — Fri, 18 Mar 2024 01:54:25 +0000

Status symbols don’t have to mean wealth or possession of something of value. Why do you think that businessmen and celebrities have sycophants? Their yes-people are trying to hang on to the tail of a kite they think is riding high. Their association with someone viewed as popular, or important, or powerful, can give them a perceived status lift. “I’m cool because I worship someone cool!” Admittedly, a link is a very tenuous association, but then people who are linking for ego, as Shelley aptly points out, must be pretty darn desperate. Must have been a long time since you were on the playground, memer! Or maybe I just remember it too vividly and distortedly because I was one of the uncool kids.
I don’t think it’s too far-fetched for me to theorise that blogrolling (in some ways, not all!) has become a new form of sycophancy. That’s not to suggest that everyone with a blogroll is contributing to my theory– present company, methinks, is excluded– and that’s where I differ with Shelley somewhat. Even though her opinion is more extreme than mine, however, I appreciate her point and resonate with it to some degree.

By: memer

memer — Thu, 17 Mar 2024 05:17:58 +0000

I don’t get how a blogroll becomes a status symbol? Who has the ‘benz-o’ of blogrolls? Please point me, cuz I could always use a little extra bling.

re Barber, I wasn’t sure if your tongue was planted deeply in cheek there, Frankster. But now I know. And so will you.

Fun to follow the trails tho, eh? Win some…

By: ARJ

ARJ — Thu, 17 Mar 2024 04:16:52 +0000

Except that a community directory doesn’t give “Google juice” style validity to the members listed on it. I’m not sure I’m in 100% agreement with Shelley, but I see and understand her point. The context of Blogrolls has changed from when we first started hand-crafting lists of links to each other’s blog sites, and the way that they get used (personally I hate the idea of that ecosystem thingy) has changed. Blogrolls are less of a reference and more of a status symbol, and I’ve seen a lot of blogrolls that are just basically copied and pasted from Famous Blogger X’s site. How uninteresting.

By: fp

fp — Thu, 17 Mar 2024 02:01:58 +0000

Well Jess, she’s a new voice for me. I’ll let you know what I think after I’ve read her for a while.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 17 Mar 2024 00:26:40 +0000

I stopped reading La Shawn Barber’s blog because I found it very unbalanced and many of her claims she didn’t back up with facts. Writing reviews of books she hadn’t read, refusing to watch the election debates and then declaring a winner, and turning her comments into a chatroom, all bothered me too much to continue visiting.

Maybe she’s changed since the election, it’s been months since I visited.