BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Now I resent that

5 comments on Now I resent that

Now I resent that
: Young whippersnappers at the blog conference.

Martin Roell: “American Bloggers are old. European Bloggers are young.”

Rick Bruner: “Lots of grey hair and pot bellies in this room. I’d say half of the attendees are over 40. Here we are, all agreeing that blogs are the most exciting thing to hit the Web since Napster, yet it’s largely a bunch of old farts evangalizing and driving this new new medium forward.”

Hey, the hair’s prematurely gray, damnit.

: And then there’s the conference organizer, pitifully defending being an old fart.

Be old and be proud, my man.

: Speaking of young (OK, you’re not supposed to need bad transitions on a blog but I am too lazy to create a new entry so I’m shoehorning this in here just like a real journalist would), soft-spoken snark queen Elizabeth Spiers says of the blog conference:

I sat on a media panel at a blogging conference where I think I was expected to say that blogs would kill the New York Times and that Big Media

5 responses to “Now I resent that”

  1. Charles Compton Avatar
    Charles Compton

    One of my high-school English teachers of 30 years ago e-mails to say:
    “I’m proud of my gray hairs. I’ve earned them!”
    Having sat in her class, I couldn’t possibly deny that.

  2. Rick Bruner Avatar
    Rick Bruner

    You’re too sensitive about your grey hair. I told you I’m a stone’s throw from 40 myself. Today’s my birthday; don’t need any better reminders than that.

  3. Homer Robinson Avatar
    Homer Robinson

    Jeff, just be glad you got hair.(Unlike some of us, sigh.)

  4. Stephen Avatar
    Stephen

    Before P.J. O’Rourke’s book, it was a T-Shirt:
    “Old age and treachery will always defeat youth, vitality and a bad haircut.”

  5. Justin Katz Avatar
    Justin Katz

    Two thoughts:
    1) Are young Eurobloggers more likely to be the sort of folks who have the dough to fly off to blog conferences than young U.S. bloggers? I’m 28 and often considered relatively young (in mixed company) and, though I live in Rhode Island, couldn’t dream of spending the time or money to head up to Boston for a conference.
    2) Are more “pros” and “adults” blogging in the States? I’ve noticed that a fair number of the first to third tier bloggers are professional somethings (whether in media like Jeff, academics like Glenn Reynolds and the Volokh gang, pro pundits like NRO or Sullivan, or the handful of novelists), and they understandably port some of their non-blog strategies for discerning trustworthiness and credulity to the blog world. They can also leverage their professional capacity to increase the traffic to their blogs.
    For example, Jeff and I began blogging around the same time (I think). Back in December/January when we were both vlogging fairly regularly, our hit counts were almost equivalent (say, fourth or third tier). Since then, thanks to interviews and professional connections, Jeff has rocketed into the second tier, while I remained level and then drifted some once “the war boom” ended.
    In a way, that makes blogging seem further matured in the States, but it will also tend to make the successful bloggers more closely resemble the successful other-things.
    (Note: I realize that there’s some presumption on my part that it isn’t some other factor that has led to our different trend-lines [e.g., quality or just the sizes of our respective potential audiences]. But I think it fairly obvious that publicity would have no trouble accounting for the difference.)