It was one year ago today that the Charlottesville Blogs website was established, in order to aggregate all of the great blogs in Charlottesville. There were only maybe a dozen Charlottesville bloggers at the time: BK Marcus, Bill Emory, Brian Geiger, Colten Noakes, Duane Gran, Helena Cobban, Jim Duncan, Lafe, Polyglot Conspiracy, Ryan Chiachiere, Rick Sincere and Joe Stirt were all running thoroughly enjoyable blogs at the time. Granted, at first it was basically all Book of Joe all the time (face it, Joe, you’re prolific) but as the ranks swelled, the variety and insight represented became more and more impressive.
Today there are 174 Charlottesville area blogs, and I can honestly say that I really, really enjoy reading them. I couldn’t have forecast a fifteen-fold increase in just twelve months, and certainly I never would have expected that the quality of writing and insights would increase at the same rate. I believe I’d be happy limiting myself to reading only Charlottesville blogs, so impressive is the bunch.
Nothing particularly special happened a year ago — Charlottesville Blogs was just a way to aggregate all of the great blogging that was going on, that in some cases had been going on for years. But the explosion in blogging among y’all in the past year has been amazing, and worthy of acknowledgment. So I celebrate this arbitrary anniversary today. What it’ll all look like in a year’s time I don’t dare speculate.
Blogger: Term used to describe anyone with enough time or narcissism to document every tedious bit of minutia filling their uneventful lives. Possibly the most annoying thing about bloggers is the sense of self-importance they get after even the most modest of publicity. Sometimes it takes as little as a referral on a more popular blogger’s website to set the lesser blogger’s ego into orbit.
This is a blog. So I have to ask you: What’s lamer — writing such dreck, or reading it?
I believe this is a “so what’s that make you, the king of nothing?” moment. :)
Only a dozen bloggers here a year ago? You should really say just a dozen that you were aware of. I’ve been blogging since 1993, but only about c-ville since I moved to the ville. I run multiple other blogs here in the community that don’t deal with this place at all. Other people that live here in town have also been running blogs for years and after fame and glory (more than 300k visitors/day, features on talk shows, etc.) have stopped due to frustration of living in the village.
As for the 174 bloggers, when is the last time “book of joe” actually posted one single thing about the village?
Blogging is rather old school…and after 13 years I’m so bored with it, but figure I might as well rant about the #1 overpriced city in Virginia.
Since there is nothing else to do in this village, people will read these pointless local blogs…even my verbal drivel.
I really can’t be aware of anything that I’m not aware of. I may as well write that there are only 174 bloggers here that I’m aware of now, that I’m only aware that Bundoran Farm exists (perhaps it’s vaporized overnight), and that Tim Longo is the only Charlottesville chief of police of whom I’m aware. They’re gimmes.
I’m not sure what village you mean, but the last time Joe wrote about Charlottesville was a little over a week ago — he’s written about it a lot.
But you seem to be missing the point. What makes Charlottesville blogs interesting isn’t a bunch of people writing about Charlottesville, it’s a bunch of Charlottesville people writing about the world. Helena Cobban‘s perspective on the Middle East is an amazing gem to be available to us. That Barbara Ehrenreich lives here and writes about labor issues around the nation does not diminish the value of that writing. Yes, even ExploreLearning’s blog is interesting, and I’m not a customer.
It’s great when Charlottesville bloggers write about Charlottesville, but it’s just as interesting when they write about the world. It provides a view of the world as through a prism.
*sigh*
You must be a hell of a dinner party guest.
I blogged when I lived in C-ville for many years (from 1999 – 2004). Me and two former co-workers were actually the very first C-villians to have LiveJournals. We’ve all since moved away from C-ville though.
I agree with Doc that Book of Joe doesn’t write much about Charlottesville but in the words of many of the veteran LJers….MY JOURNAL….MINE!!
Many more of us journal online and have done so for several years or more, but prefer to keep our narcissism restricted to a smaller realm. My LJ is certainly not of interest to anyone who doesn’t know me and it’s certainly full of pointless posts. My bloggity blog blog might be of interest, but it’s unpublished. My flickr account is public and viewable and certainly easy to find with keywords like “charlottesville” or “poodle”.
I enjoy blogs which highlight information, common interests, or neat photos. That’s the main reason I *don’t* share any of my RSS feeds here. ;)
Actually Waldo I read your blog because I get some information from it about Charlottesville – you keep the personal stuff to a minimum. But so many blogs are painfully narcissistic exercises – it’s a shame that the word “blog” covers the informational and the pathetic. But then again, in the broadest terms, the word “literature” includes both Shakespeare and Tom Clancy…
Waldo say, “I really can’t be aware of anything that I’m not aware of…”
I dream of the day when I can say such poignant things, but alas, I’m not a true southern gentleman. If I was a Rich Girl na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-naaa.
How about we all THANK Waldo for providing C’ville Blogs, which is a great resource, eh? And CONGRATULATE him on its anniversary.
Many of these comments strike me as both offensive and uninformed. UberXY says bloggers are people who “document every tedious bit of minutia filling their uneventful lives.” This is a very narrow conception of the term “blog” and patently untrue. My blog isn’t personal, and neither are most of the ones I read. “Blog” is a format more than a genre, and you just shouldn’t look at the ones you’re not interested in. It’s like reading third person nonfiction or memoirs; you choose your sources.
Re DocMulti: Neither is my blog about C’ville – as Waldo pointed out, that’s not so much a requirement for being listed. The aggregator is just for community members who are interested in their community to be able to find out who else around them is writing, and what about. Waldo writes about C’ville and I write about language and Lincoln writes about fiction, but we’re all part of C’ville.
The whole concept of “C’ville Blog” in this context doesn’t even apply to overtly “narcissistic” blogs and LJs, if they’re not meant for public consumption. Plus, if you send Waldo your link, he’ll add it to the site. If you don’t, and he has no reason to find your blog otherwise (i.e. it’s not well-known or about a topic he’s interested in and thereby stumbles across), he won’t. It’s not a popularity contest; it’s not even a topic filter.
Also notice that Waldo didn’t flat-out say that there were only a dozen blogs at the time; he said there were a dozen blogs that were “thoroughly enjoyable” (thanks for the compliment, btw! My ego is now through the roof, natch).