Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The Story's the Thing

Richard Cranium responds to Weyrich's nonsense. He hits on Weyrich's version of the Prime Pundit Fallacy- since he's in it for the attention and media adulation everybody who ever puts themself out there is in it for the same reason. This is a fairly common misconception about bloggers. People are stunned if you, say, turn down a chance to appear on TV for 5 minutes, the assumption being that getting your sweet mug in front of a camera is the sole motivating goal in all of human existence.

But, what should be obvious is that people who blog behind pseudonyms aren't, in fact, doing it for fame and fortune (why anyone thinks one who desires fame generally would turn to blogging I do not know). The main reason people start blogging is that they want to, in some small way, occasionally have an impact on the public discourse. It's satisfying when it happens, whether or not it's accompanied by any "credit." Frankly, that part of it is usually a bit creepy.