Welcome to the Cool Zone. This is the blog where you can find out if you are in or out. But not really.
Do you ever get the feeling that by entering the blogging world you have essentially gone back to high school? Well I haven’t ever got that feeling. So, I guess I really don’t have anything else to say…
Okay, I always have more to say. I honestly hadn’t felt that way until I read Vivien’s post yesterday on Inspiration Bit. Vivien doesn’t know this—how could she—but I am one of her many subscribers. She has some good things to say. Plus, I love all the green on her blog. It’s like she’s an organic blogger! Just like us! I can’t believe I just used two exclamation points in a row. I have to get out of here—new paragraph.
I was particularly touched by yesterday’s rant/post. Remember on Monday how we were discussing different styles of blogging to add some new perspective? A rant is a perfect way at offering a new perspective. It’s tricky though. You have to be good at it. I am bad at it. I usually end up sounding like a child who stamps his feet because he doesn’t get what he wants. Vivien, however, is a master and she gave us a bit of a rant on the 2008 Bloggies.
Apparently, there are a few problems with the Bloggies. They continually seem to select from the same group of bloggers. It seems that only the cool bloggers are chosen. Vivien laments:
It is understandable why the spot on the Bloggies site is so coveted - it can bring a much needed recognition to an unknown to big masses blog. Most of us regard Weblog Awards as a great opportunity to discover some outstanding blogs that we otherwise wouldn’t have heard about. The problem is that it’s rather our hope to find new interesting blogs on Bloggies, when in fact year after year the same old “faces” and names show up in the final nominations list.
Lee and I have only been running Epiblogger for a month and so we weren’t nominated, but it did get me thinking about these bloggers that are perpetually cool. It got me thinking about what exactly is cool? Frankly, I am pretty sure it’s everything we have ever heard it to be. Someone who is cool is an individual, unique, a certain complex simplicity, voice, leader, style and it is profoundly personal yet completely social. I think all of those bloggers were (and may still be) cool, but—for the majority that I am aware of—perhaps we might say something has changed.
These certain bloggers went from being cool to selling cool. There individual voice that originally captured you changed to a voice that works. They went from complex simplicity to just plain, old simple. They stopped talking to you and they started talking at you. They stopped being the person everyone wanted to be friends with and became the person that just wants friends.
As bloggers we grow and learn, just as we do with life, and so it is right that we allow for changes and fluctuations in ourselves and in our blogs. But I don’t think it is too much too consider whether we are cool or if we are selling it (as bloggers). I submit to you that in order that we might bring content that is authentic and consistent that we must be cool and not sell it.
The cool bloggers aren’t necessarily the nominated ones. The cool bloggers are the ones that remain true to their voice, vision and don’t peddle cheap content at the expense of their readership.
I want to be a cool blogger. I offer this post as an example of that desire, because (I am sure you all caught onto this) I just summed up my first month’s posts without using a list. Pretty neat, eh?
Photo by anonfx
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8 Comments
well, Rhett… what can I say. First of all, thank you for the mention! Secondly, thanks for teaching me a new trick on how to link back to all the previous posts of the month without using a list - I agree, that was pretty cool.
and for the great summary of pinpointing what exactly went wrong with many of the prominent bloggers and blogs - they indeed stopped being cool and started selling cool, in other words they’re big shots in the blogiverse, but then that’s all they are - just big shots.
I’ve also learned that you’re one of my subscribers, for which I’m very grateful. And that apparently I’m good with rants
Keep up the good work, Rhett and hope you’ll never stop being cool
Thanks Vivien! I am glad you liked it. I was just a tiny bit worried. And I will do my best to stay cool… especially in this freezing cold weather.
You surely are cool. I liked your non-list. Shouldn’t we organize the Cool Bloggers Awards? And keep it in the summer, when it’s even harder to stay cool
Ha! Thanks Simonne. I will do my best to keep cool. That’s not a half bad idea. I wonder if the problem is with Blogger Awards if that it’s because they aren’t like movies or books because they (generally) have no ending. They just keep going. But there definitely should be an awards for all the great new blogs each year. Maybe we should try and organize something.
As I see it, one of the problems is that many bloggers don’t have neither time, nor money to spend for making themselves known to a critical mass of people, so we will probably manage to offend some people with great blogs, but which we didn’t discover. Because we also won’t have the money to make our initiative known to those bloggers.
Its a joke to see some of the big blogs that “cant be in a category” because they’ve won the last 3 years.
They just put them in other categories to win.
I like “they went from being cool to selling cool”
dead on
Thanks Matthew. Great site. I really like that name. *Subscribed*
Thanks for subscribing, hope you like it.
Great article again, i stumbled
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