Internet Tantrums
The 2008 Plug Awards have been announced, so go along and vote. They are pretty much the best awards going if you ask me, but I am not particularly excited by the nominees this year. That album list, for all it contains an awful lot of very good albums, is pretty lacking in imagination. There are no nominations there that didn’t make me think ‘ah yes, them’ when I read them. The list of best blogs is largely the same. It’s like someone Googled music blogs and wrote down the top five results. That’s not what happens, but you get my drift. Half of them are on the Wikipedia mp3 blog page, which pretty much sums it up. Not much from the old Song, by Toad blogroll, sadly.
Be careful where you say this, though. I stirred up a right old episode of handbags on the bloggers’ message board over at elbo.ws for saying that I thought it was a crap list. I must confess I didn’t express myself very well when I first said it – accusing the nominees of by and large lacking a personal voice, when what I really meant might have been better said thus: they tend not to have that personal journal aspect that I like about my favourite blogs, which makes them as much about the person doing the writing as it does about the music.
Either way, the ensuing kerfuffle would have done a bunch of twelve year old girls proud: the next time I logged in I was ‘the worst poster on these boards’ and ‘retarded’ and found myself fending off the rather pompous, and not a little bit comical, outrage of half a dozen premium bloggers. So I got stuck right back in myself, as I’m sure you can imagine, and the whole thing descended from there. In any case, if the hierarchy of bloggers counted for anything, which it fortunately doesn’t, I would be entirely finished in the blogging world as of this morning.
It was a bit silly really, as there was a perfectly useful discussion to be had in there somewhere, but the ensuing nonsense was classic internet message board: absolutely everyone over-expressing themselves and calling each other ‘tards and so on and so forth. I called someone a cock smoker at one point myself, which I think is one to be particularly proud of. The Aussies really do bring a panache to the world of the casually vulgar insult that the rest of us can only aspire to. I told another gentleman what his writing tended to substitute sincerity for writerly knob-cheese, which perhaps mightn’t have been the most diplomatically adept way to get the discussion back on course. And, almost inevitably, I think I called them all a bunch of whores at one point as well.
Either way, without going into the rights and wrongs of the actual argument, it’s amazing how easily this sort of thing seems to happen on the internet. People just don’t seem to have quite evolved the means for preventing this sort of cycle escalating far, far faster than it would in the real world. Sometimes I think people get a bit carried away coming up with a neatly phrased put-down and rather forget the discussion they’re in. I know I went a bit over the top at the time, but then again, I did do some excellent work, especially towards the end when I got a little irritated. 
I suppose what it really comes down to is the fact that it is incredibly difficult to be sensitive on the internet. I knew that half those bloggers, whose work I was about to publically declare not all that interesting, use those boards. In a direct personal conversation you can convey a lack of desire to be confrontational and directly hurtful with body language, but it is pretty bloody tricky to do so when writing something down, especially when the content itself is really quite touchy.
The Wedding Present – Getting Nowhere Fast (Live)
Shout Out Louds – Ill Wills
Art Pedro – I’m the Greatest
I could say that it’s due to small people, work, life I stay away from these boards. But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. I did flirt with elbo.ws, a one night stand or two, in the early days. I quickly gave up because I realised I was getting nothing from it. Quite literally, nothing. Well, except for a lot of fluff, toss, back-slapping, name-calling, junk. All praise to you Toad for calling it true – I would have just run away and cried in the face of *that*. Where have all the unique, individual, special voices gone? Why do so many blogs just push out ever-so-slightly rewritten PR company releases? Music moves us, touches us. This is what it is about, isn’t it? The personal, as well as the promotional, surely? Well, they can have their space, I suppose, but we will have ours. I’m shoulder to shoulder with you on this one Toad – but not in a Bush/Blair way, you understand. More in an Emo way. Er…
…And now I’m back having read all 116 messages in the thread, so far.
Lost for words.
Except to say thanks for the shoutout, like they care…
Mr. Toad, while I may not have been so blunt, I am in general agreement with you about the state of blogs these days…to stave off any critcism of this comment, I’ll concede they are probably sick of me too (and I don’t blame them…poor guys and gals are being bombarded daily by promobots).
In any case, it seems I am taking more and more blogs off my reading list these days and only taking the time to check out the few who amuse me, apart from my job as a new media person for independent labels (hey, we’re moving on from the blog world these days and into social networking anyway
.
As a “music fan” and one who loves an entertaining turn of phrase and writers who don’t take themselves and their role in the promotional machinery so seriously and are unafraid of being politically correct, I consider your site a bloody fucking gem.
Hear! Hear! wendy.
Where in the world would we be without taking that stick out of our arses every now & then & poking ourselves with it?
Go get them, Mr. Toad, or should that be Tiger?rrRRraaaWwwRr
Must say that I was shocked by how many prominent bloggers post there. And act like idiots. (And I don’t mean you, M.) Actually not so much the second part. Message boards: the forum for childish, defensive namecalling since whenever they invented the internet.
-bill
…and I meant to say “unafraid of being politically INcorrect” but you probably got my drift.
No Wendy, you said it right the first time. Political incorrectness will not be tolerated here on Song, by Toad. There will be immediate bans for anyone mocking spastics, retards, jews, nig.. oops, no perhaps not this early in the morning.
Actually, I am not trying to justify my arguments there at all. I think I ended up being a too personal, and didn’t quite have square in my head what I was trying to say before I said it, which would have helped.
But I have been on other message boards before, including the Guardian’s excellent talk site (got banned under two different pseudonyms and then gave up) and I am forever amazed by how quickly these things get out of hand.
Things simmer along nicely enough for ages and then, boom, it all kicks off for no really obvious reason.
Just to reiterate, this post absolutely isn’t about continuing that row, or justifying anything I may have said. I am just genuinely amazed at how quickly these things get out of hand. It’s a shame really, because a lot of the time if the discussion were face to face it just wouldn’t happen.
I am not trying to absolve myself of blame either. Calling people a bunch of whores is hardly going to be helpful under those circumstances.
I must say, I was very impressed with the turn of phrase, “Writerly Knob-Cheese”. I agree, I find myself utterly turned off by the “Big Boys” because of the lack of voice. I think I have about 4 or so music blogs I check on a regular basis, and all of them are equally about the person as they are about the music. Thank you for contributing YOUR voice to the stale state of online discourse.
Eee, I should have known better than to bring this up again, I suspect.
I really appreciate everyone’s comments, but I am not trying to reignite the debate about who was right. I am just a little bit dismayed at how quickly the whole business descended into ‘you’re a retard’ ‘much better blogs than yours’ and ‘you bunch of whores’ slanging.
And it’s silly too, as had that discussion taken place around a pub table I bet it could have been dead interesting. And there would have been no tantrums from anyone – even me!
…I was going to comment on your impressive use of “writerly knob-cheese” but Harry beat me to it.
Also, I agree that the music categories were quite unimaginative this year and the only reason I voted was to get a vote in for The Big Takeover as Best Zine.