This. It's a random article on Gawker with a trailer for an upcoming documentary called 'American Blogger.' Being a blogger myself and drawing a ton of news and information from the wide, crazy world that is the blogosphere, I was intrigued enough to check out the trailer. And that is where the fun begins...
Just to be clear: the conclusions that I'm about to draw are based entirely on the trailer. If the movie addresses all of the concerns/objections that I'm about to raise then I will be the first to apologize- probably on this blog. Got that? Good.
So from what I can tell, this filmmaker retrofitted an old Airstream and took off on a cross country journey to track down and interview various bloggers to find out what blogging is all about and what makes a blogger a blogger. No problems so far- in fact, looking at the sentence I just wrote, I'll admit that sounds like a really interesting premise. However, if the trailer is anything to go by- the 'American Blogger' is a predominantly white woman between the ages of 20-35. (I did spy an African-American blogger and maybe another person of color- to be totally fair about it- but there were a lot of white women in this preview.)
Yes, that's right- this guy travelled 15,000 miles across the great American landscape with great cinematography and manages to capture a relatively tiny slice of the overall blogosphere and doesn't appear to go anywhere near the essence of what the typical 'American Blogger' (if such a thing can be said to exist) is.
Does this take anything away from the bloggers that he does interview? Absolutely not. The beauty of the blogosphere is that everyone's voice is 100% valid because, after all, it's your voice. It's unique and it adds to the crazy diversity of the blogosphere, which is, to me, what makes blogging so awesome. You can find any type of blog for absolutely anything.
My problem is that if you're going to make a documentary and call it 'American Blogger' there's an implication to me that you're supposed to be looking for what makes an 'American Blogger.' And I'm sorry, but somewhere, something went off the rails here. First of all, the topic is freaking huge. It'd be challenging enough to seriously take this idea on just on paper- on film, if done right- or hell, even anywhere close to right- you could have seriously produced a fantastic documentary- I mean, award-winning- shit, Academy Award winning! This is one of those idea that might actually be impossible to film. But if you're going to attempt it, then you shouldn't half-ass it. You shouldn't pick the one area of the blogosphere that you think is going to get your documentary the most viewers possible- packing your preview with attractive women- women that, I suspect from a marketing perspective were designed to be eye candy to put butts in seats, is insulting and more than a little demeaning to me.
Secondly, why is this a documentary? Is this supposed to be about blogging or his journey around the country meeting some bloggers? I'm confused- if it's about his journey, then fine- in fact, it's more than fine- if that's his vision, then great. Bring it on! But don't call it 'American Blogger.' It's fundamentally misleading, to me: a documentary entitled 'American Blogger' should be about American Bloggers- not a small, relatively homogenous sample size of the American blogosphere.
Thirdly, so now we've established that this documentary, on face value, seems more than a little limiting- so, you might ask, why don't you, Tom, go out and make a better movie? That's a good point. If I had the passion, funding and the knowledge to actually do it- I just might- and here, to me, are the minimum things/people you would need to talk about to get a grasp on blogging, the blogosphere and the real portrait of the 'American Blogger.'
I'd want to look at the political blogosphere- both right and left. You have to talk to Instapundit, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Drudge, The Huffington Post- you can dip into the legal side of things and look at blogs like The Volokh Conspiracy and Althouse- not to mention SCOTUSBlog. You'd want to look at feminist blogs like Jezebel or Feministing- look at the world of sports and what Deadspin does, but you'd also want to look at phenomena like Black Twitter- or entertainment based blogs like Perez Hilton. But- you'd also want to shrink down from the big, 'macro' perspective and look at smaller blogs- personal blogs, Etsy type blogs, food and parenting blogs. Blogging as a phenomena has democratized the idea of communication, in a way. (Someone has written a book about this- and probably several more I haven't read besides.) You don't need to find a guy with a soapbox- you can be the soapbox. You can build your own!
There is, absolutely, no way whatsoever, you could get it all. But I do think it would be possible to make a documentary that illustrates the massive cultural and societal impact that the development and explosion of blogging has had on the United States. That would be a documentary I would want to watch. That might even be an important documentary.
Do I think it will 'change the way anyone views an industry?' No. While I acknowledge that blogging can be a very very good way to sell things to people, viewing it as an industry is limiting. It's a perspective that's not incorrect, but it really does depend on what you blog for. I don't blog to market things. The odds of my blog going viral and breaking out and getting a readership like Drudge or Instapundit is minimal. I know that. I do this for me, because I love to write and I write about things that interest me- and as a result, my blog is somewhat hard to market. (This is a problem I've run into with my first novel as well. Ooooh- see what I did there?) I don't fit comfortably into one niche of the blogosphere more than the other- which is why I actually spun out my food blogging into a blog of it's own just last month- in an attempt to give my foodie adventures a home and give this blog a more clearly defined identity.
But here's the beautiful part about this whole debate, to me: a lot of it is a moot point. If this is the guy's vision and the film he wants to make, then more power to him- the blogosphere is fundamentally about a multiplicity of voices- the more the merrier, in fact. But blogging is bigger than what this trailer seem to be implying. Much, much bigger and perhaps more importantly, more diverse- there are bloggers out there of every race, color, creed, sexual orientation, political persuasion that talk about every topic that you can possibly imagine. It would have been nice to see some of that- some hint of that somewhere in the preview.
And just in case anyone that's actually read this soliloquy of mine through to end is wondering- this isn't a case of 'methinks he doth protest too much' either. No one should hunt me down and interview me about blogging. There are tons of straight, white, married guys out there doing their thing. An interview with me wouldn't illustrate anything much and it certainly wouldn't add to a documentary about the diversity and impact of the blogosphere.
In the end, I guess I remain somewhat puzzled by this. Either there's something I'm missing here, or dude, you're doing it wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment