Kinsley Warns Of Coming Blogopocalypse

So, Michael Kinsley is concerned that the sheer amount of blog content has reached apocalyptic proportions, what with all the redundant stories and serpentine link trails and reporters becoming bloggers becoming reporters becoming editors becoming vloggers becoming werewolves. So he wrote a piece about his concerns in this week's Time Magazine that's sure to get blogged about and linked to and passed around and placed on Romenesko and in the end we'll all be wallowing in our own stool. Self-fulfilling prophesy!

"How many blogs does the world need? There is already blog gridlock," Kinsley notes. And I sympathize! Here at the end of the election season, I find myself taking a hatchet -- not a scalpel -- to my feed aggregator. You know what? It turns out my life goes on okay if I miss everything that comes out on Taegan Goddard's Political Wire. I've learned that FiveThirtyEight.com can be checked a mere one time a day, without experiencing vertigo. It's been two solid weeks since I've felt the need to visit Time's online ponzi scheme known as The Page, and the experience has been like living inside a paradise, as imagined by Bollywood.

And, here's a full disclosure to some of my relatives and friends: I do not, in fact, have a perfect awareness of every single blog post written here, at The Huffington Post. I spend a nice, tidy amount of time paging through it every day, but you all need to disabuse yourselves of the notion that I can account for every blessed thing written on the site.

Kinsley offers up a bit of personal anecdote, to drive home his worry:

But many readers may be reaching the point with blogs and websites that I reached long ago with the Sunday New York Times Magazine--actively hoping there isn't anything interesting in there because then I'll have to take the time to read it.

Look, I'd be lying if I told you I hadn't experienced my own moments where I hoped there wouldn't turn out to be anything interesting in a blog I made a habit of reading. But I've usually found those thoughts to be the precursor to a larger realization: I was not, in fact, required to read everything! And that sometimes, certain publications are only intermittently interesting. (Good lord, the Sunday New York Times Magazine certainly fits that bill!)

And that's just the thing: I just don't recognize the human beings suffering from blog overload in the way Kinsley describes it, as creatures I have met in Real Life. Blog readers are not all mindless, passive drones on a Sarah Palin-esque quest to read "all of them." The simplest solution to the problem Kinsley cites, it seems to me, is for sentient beings, capable of making choices, to exist. And I think they do! And those people can avail themselves of things like headlines to discern topic matter, and bylines to recognize fascinating authors, and start to reduce their glut of content.

By and large, I think that this is happening. I understand that we've just come through an amazing election season, during which Americans were staggeringly engaged in the process and the stakes, desperate for news and opinion and prediction and analysis. It was a period of involvement, driven by need. Some people will continue this level of involvement on certain topics -- I met a woman this past weekend who's so fascinated by the coming news of cabinet appointments that she felt compelled to visit a handful of sites multiple times a day. But, by and large, web content is not oxygen, and blogs are mostly things that people read in their spare time, for enjoyment. So the glut of content may continue to grow and grow, unabated, but it's existence does not necessitate our enslavement to it. Tomorrow, a tree shall fall in a forest somewhere, and this occasion shall pass, un-Twittered.

Really, if you want to do one thing right now to avoid being drowned in blog content, take this advice: limit yourself to reading only five Tumblrs, and only one from New York City, because they are all the same anyway.

Comments

[Buddy McCue]

Imagine walking into a liquor store, and complaining that there were too many kinds of alcohol. Imagine blaming the urge to try them all on the store itself, or its stocking policies. Demanding less choices and variety.

Ridiculous.

[Courtney250]

Precisely correct!

[PanFx]

Does Kinsley not know how to limit himself? Is he that weak over his desires? Just like anything that is bad when done in excess, one will grow tired to the point of rejection. An analogous example: if one sees an entire chocolate cake, is it best to take a moderately-sized slice, or half the cake?

Also, what about the theory of Darwinism? Just like newspapers, some blogs will die out due to poor reporting, lack of diversity, or any number of things. Why not just let nature take its course? Kinsey should quit whining and go about picking the blogs that interest him most -- forget about the rest of them (might I recommend making Drudge the first casualty?).

[jonthebru]

For many years I have thought there are to many Micheal Kinleys' in the world.

Newspapers and paper magazines are gone, those who survive will be online primarily. There will definitely be a shake out but how that process will occur is anyone's guess.
Look at CNN gathering viewers opinions by video skype. Or check out the high quality of NYT on line videos, two things newspapers can't do and require a real effort to keep up with.

[CBS]

Isn't that kinda like worrying that there will be too much food?

[jigisup]

I love blogs. They helped turn my red state Blue. Go Indiana!!!!!

[NoSandwiches]

Postings in many places help spread the word. That's the point. That's why ridiculous claims no longer can stand up in the media--people are posting and linking. If news sources want to survive, they should do some in-depth reporting instead of fluffy pieces that scratch the surface or have factual inaccuracies. No one gets away with trying to post a piece about the Alaska recount and suggesting that Palin could appoint herself Senator if Ted wins and has to step down, because it has been so widely reported that this was not an option.

Time needs to figure out what people want and give it to them or else become irrelevant.

[JScott]

Makes his prescence in the blogosphere not profitable?, stop whinin and complainin,
it'll all sort itself out in the 'marketplace of ideas', eh!

[rabiddog6708]

Blogging is like anything.....it can be a good thing or a bad thing (like a tool for spreading hate and dis-information. But, primarily, blogging is a good thing. It leads to discussion and debate, opens the users up to another ideas and points-of-view. Some may be trivial, but a lot is not. I think Kinsley realizes that the rise of the blogs decreases his role in the world of journalism and political punditry. People are too busy talking to one another to listen to him.

[Retrofuturistic]

Research shows that people are getting smarter. We are evolving (after all, we elected Obama). I think it's because of blogs....

We have risen above racism and a few other nasty "-isms", because when you're talking on a blog, the only thing that counts is your WORDS and the integrity of your REASONING. People can't see you, so they can't be prejudiced by your gender, your age, your race, your sexual orientation, the scarf on your head, or the big old honking cross around your neck.

Leave the blogs alone....

[wagadog]

Maybe he should start a blog about it.

[Topfeeder]

Now that's the spirit!

[SpaghettyIrish]

Your own life has the capacity to be way more interesting than anything u can find in any form of media, fiction or non. When I figure out how to put this into practice, I will be sure to post about it somewhere on HuffPo :P

[RobinSeattle]

Isn't this reminiscent of the scene between Salieri and Mozart in "Amadeus," where the king, with the urging of Salieri, proclaims that one of Mozart's pieces "has too many notes?" And Mozart replies, "which ones do you want cut out (or something like that)?"

Such as the problem with blogs. I read three to five blogs everyday. But the following quote you give is also one of the frustrations of life:

"But many readers may be reaching the point with blogs and websites that I reached long ago with the Sunday New York Times Magazine--actively hoping there isn't anything interesting in there because then I'll have to take the time to read it."

I've always said I need 72 hour days just to begin to hope I would accomplish everything I want to in life, including books and blogs to read. Unfortunately, we just don't have enough time as human beings and so we have to carefully apportion it according to our immediate priorities. But that is not enough of a reason to decry the explosion in the number of blogs. I think it's great that folks have that outlet for expression, no matter how inane or redundant some of the content may be.

[pthalomarie]

Something else to consider is how dependent blogs are on "old media." Here we are debating the marits of an essay posted at mainstream/old media website. Ultimately, old media content is what has stimulated and engaged people here. The Huffington post just happened to link to it. Without old media posting articles and essays online, much of the content of sites like this would dry up. Take note of just how many blog posts here and elsewhere link to msnbc, the new york times, or time magazine's website. If you think blogs will render old media obsolete, you're not paying attention. Blogs need old media more than old media needs blogs.

[Kevin Rennie]

Too many voices, not enough ears. An Australian voice is at: Labor View from Bayside

[TovSquirrel]

Too many blogs, too many informed voters.