Too Cool For School

Adam Green in his smart blog, Feedonomics, rightly suggests the A-List bloggers are getting a little too big for their britches perhaps.

And who turned them into the only PR outlet for tech-news-you-can-use? It has gotten a little crazy.

Now we have blogging, and have decided that we don’t need a press. Blogging is democratic. Blogging is by the people and for the people. Bullshit. Blogging is high school. And in high school coolness matters. I didn’t blog when it started getting popular in 2001-2004, because I recognized it as high school, and I didn’t enjoy high school. It wasn’t a big deal, because blogging was a personal thing. If people wanted to act as A-listers in their personal life, why should I care?

Now I do care, because the blogging A-list has taken over the tech world. Somewhere along the line we annointed Arrington, Scoble and a fw others as the ultimate cool kids and gave them the power to pick what we all talk about. The rules are clear. If you live in the Valley and go to the parties and get drunk with Scoble, you too can be cool. It isn’t that simple? Anyone can become an A-list tech blogger? Really? Name one who has broken through in the last year.

This still didn’t bother me, because there was at least a channel. You could email the A-list and they would usually respond, and if you had something interesting to tell them, they would write about it. Where we crossed a very dangerous line was when the cool kids decided that they wouldn’t read or respond to email. They proclaimed “Just be cool dude.” Don’t do anything as uncool as contacting them. Just hang out at the right parties and get drunk with the right people, and maybe, you too could be cool. Then they’ll write about you, because you are cool.