On Tuesday, Jason Kottke announced that he was devoting himself full-time to working on maintaining his weblog, and asking for his readers to support him financially so he could do so. There was, of course, a lot of attention and a lot of discussion, since Jason is arguably the most popular individual weblogger on the Internet, and because his framing of his effort is fairly unique in its motivations and execution. What's more important to me, though, is that Jason's decision to work on his site professionally matters.
And this comes down not just to believing in blogs, but in choosing what blogs can be. Blogging isn't about politics, or technology, or food, or design. It's about all of those things, or none of them, or whatever topic catches your eye. It's as idiosyncratic and compelling as an individual, and it's a different medium to every person who's ever participated, or to every one who's ever dropped out. (Though they always come running back.) So Jason's betting on the potential of the medium.
More impressively, he's bet his rent that bloggers are generous enough and adventurous enough to support their own. That we all care about the medium so much that we'll make his risk worth his while. Given the track record of in-fighting and cliquishness and polarization that has characterized the weblog realm since its earliest days and worsened over the years, it's an optimistic and brave endorsement of the medium that Jason's decided to wager his entire lifestyle on our generosity.
Now, both in the interest of disclosure and as background, I should explain that I consider Jason a good friend of mine. He and I had talked, in fairly vague terms, about the idea of professional blogging some time ago, and when he came closer to a specific idea of trying to do his site professionally as a better incarnation of its current self, I was an extremely enthusiastic supporter.
Should I support him because he's the first to try to blog professionally? No. (He's not.) Because he's the best blogger on the web? No. (Though he is.) Because he's not just making a living by blogging about a lucrative niche topic? Maybe.
There's a lot of reasons for my support. First, I admire anybody with the chutzpah to go and do something entrepreneurial. But I also admire someone who bets on optimism, on people's best traits, on their desire to encourage others. I believe in the idea of everyone being a Medici, except without the nasty Medici habit of infiltrating the papacy. ("Pope Hacking", coming soon from O'Reilly.) I think that we need more good examples of a personal blog, one that comes from an individual's desire to explore the world and share their discoveries with the audience they want to reach, whether that's a few close friends or the entire web.
But I also want to have one of the first and highest-profile weblogs be created by someone who loves the web. Weblogs are the most natural format for content on the Internet, as comfortable a fit for their medium as sitcoms are to television. I remember reading back to Matt's post about joining Pyra and it reminds me about why I found Jason's work compelling in the first place, and why I was drawn to blogging with such a passion that I ended up writing almost the same post as Matt when I joined a blogging company myself.
I want the people who get quoted about being professsional bloggers to be people who really love the web, not just people who love what the web can do for their careers, or their notoriety, or for their causes. I don't want people to start blogging merely so they can "graduate" to television or print, though I certainly am glad that there are people who do so. I just want to make sure that there's some representation for people who still get excited about what the web can be, and are still looking to find out what the web is becoming next.
Some history is probably in order to explain more about why this is true. I first interacted with Jason because he gave a description of how to unshrink a wool sweater. Hardly profound, but eminently practical, and a classic example of that web serendipity where you find a bit of information you didn't even know you were looking for.
From there, I went backwards to Jason's work on 0sil8, his site of influential and innovative episodic web experiments. What I quickly realized was that Jason was someone who fit the the words that Matt later used:
It's hard to find people that "get" the web anymore. Everyone's scampering for the next big profit model, doing whatever it takes to create the next successful IPO. These are people that "use" the web or "do" the web, it's just another medium to them like television or radio (remember when people used to think television could educate us?). The people that really "get" the web are the people that can still remember how magical it was to hear stories from the other side of the world, they can remember the first time a complete stranger emailed them to share experiences similar to the one's they wrote about, and they know an interconnected world isn't just about selling stuff to everyone that can operate a mouse.
One of the things Jason and I have in common is we're both basically geeks from small towns who ended up in New York. It seems to me that we both independently decided to try to appreciate the things that a town with that sort of culture had to offer without either adopting the pretentious tones of people who make Art, or the cynical tones of those who won't ever let themselves appreciate other people's work.
I saw that just the other day with Jason's near-reverent post about seeing The Gates in Central Park. It's a polarizing work, inspiring lots of people to scoff and respond with either "I could do that!" or "What a waste of money!" or "That doesn't count as effort!", but almost none of those responses came from people who have actually witnessed the work, as far as I can tell. It takes vision and conviction to try to support oneself by creating a work in a medium that many don't yet consider legitimate, and to ask for support from the others who are open-minded and, well, optimistic enough to see the potential of the dream, too.
The idea that someone can make a blog so good you'd be glad to pay for it? That this medium isn't gonna change the world, or change human nature, or destroy old media, but that despite all that it still matters? That's a dream I'm willing to pay to support. That's worth my money. So, I'm a Kottke.org micropatron.
Thanks for reminding me what makes reading some of the vitriol spewed over Jason’s gutsy move so sickening. It’s because it’s written by people who don’t seem to love or be passionate about anything (other than bitching), let alone the web. I’ve been working in ‘web development’ for eleven years now and meeting people who get it, especially in this business, is a rare, rare thing. We should cherish those who do. Micropatrons of the world, unite, damnit.
It feels like something important has happnened on the Internet. I feel exhiliration. Confused - like paradigms have shifted. “Where were you when you heard Kottke was going pro?”
Totally agree that he deserves praise for trying this. I’ve not yet donated, not sure if I will, but I will continue to visit Jason’s site and see what the next few months throw up. He’s hinted at some form future thinking, and I’ll be really interested when he starts to talk about them.
The one thing that really astounded me about the vitriol that this issue generated was… well whilst I agree that the web is important, and I think I “get” weblogs in the best sense (they are valuable to each in their own right and everyone in different ways).. this was all over one man. And his weblog.
Unless his future plans are to blog about discovering a cure for cancer then I’m thinking that a small amount of micropatronage ain’t gonna hurt. Hell I think I will pay it just to see what happens!
Dude, you weren’t supposed to spill my plans for the papacy!
shakes fist angrily
And I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling Dash!
And what a pope you’d be, Brad … “I’m the bloody pope! I may not know art, but I know what I like!”
I wish Jason the best of luck.
I just shrunk one of my favorite wool shirts two weeks ago - and now you throw the link of how to unshrink it in this post. Amazing. Yet another reason to become a kottke micropatron - it’s cheaper than buying a new wool shirt.
Well said, Anil. It’s funny that I have a specific mememory of both that sweater post and Matt’s entry about joining Pyra - the former because Jason’s post was practical for me and my bad laundry skills, and the latter because Matt’s move made me wish that my love of the web could become more central to my life and employment.
For me, the mark of good weblogging strikes a balance between those two - information and inspiration.
I didn’t really know what to think about this at first but after some thought, I agree with you and admire the idea and it’a actually helped me figure out what to do professionally in my life. Taking something that we all love and getting it the attention that it deserves is admirable.
Unlike many if not most bloggers, Jason has made it easy for us to donate to his efforts. His site is highly usable (even on a BlackBerry), well written, pertinent to a wide range of audience and demographics, and is opinionated without being outrageous. The analogy for me, still, is Salon.com. As bloggers and readers, we either support the leading independent online publications with our wallets or we hope that free means good.
Perhaps the historical perspective of those who remember The Web Before Blogs is anomalous these days. It’s not something I can do much about, but I’m not prepared to engage in a kind of forcible forgetting. Which is why I’m prepared to open my wallet, in the spirit of those who signed up for Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer in the 1720s. I’m happy to do it for a selfish reason: that Jason helps keeps alive a vision of the web that I continue to prize.
Anil, aside from Jason’s move to solicit micropatrons (which I laud), your post struck a tone in me that rang the bells of sentiment. The web we used to know has often given to brashness that all things web are simply what they are. The magic of receiving an email from a stranger on the same wavelength simply hammers in the point that a tiny fraction of a single digit percentage of the world is a regular blogger. For words to affect the minds of others is equivalent to reading a book that makes a stranger take a thought and make it wealthy - many countries, cultures and oceans away. There is much needed to make the web human, and I jump with joy when someone creates a really useful app or renders a hobbyist idea into a real and dedicated service. Making markets out of nothing is shrewd and fosters quality progression of blogging.
Some deviation to your original post. Thanks for covering the basics, it’s visionary.
Amit
Sorry, but this is the continued trend of the bloating of importance of blogging on the internet by, guess who? Bloggers.
Offering chronological content is not revolutionary and never has been. What is revolutionary, is duping those same morons to pay for something that has no worth.
17:13 <@lysol> let’s conduct an experiment
17:13 <@lysol> have any of you ever eard of anil dash?
17:13 <@lysol> *heard
17:13 <+JacksonBeOS> Anal Dish?
17:13 <+]^-0-o-^[> anil dash?
17:13 <+JacksonBeOS> I’ve eaten that
17:14 <+]^-0-o-^[> are you sure you dont mean anal rash
17:14 <+]^-0-o-^[> cuz i have one of those
17:14 <+JacksonBeOS> I’ve had that too
17:15 <@lysol> okay how about jason kottke?
17:15 <+JacksonBrown> noep
17:15 <@Dessimat0r> %windir%
nobody really even cared to answer. channel has 70 people.
Please ask your IRC channel buddies which media business models they endorse, so I can pass this on to my friends who are looking for business opportunities.