--- title: "Culture of Celebrity and Weblogs" date: 2003-10-26 author: "Richard MacManus" categories: - name: "ReadWriteWeb" url: "/category/readwriteweb.md" tags: - name: "2003" url: "/tag/2003.md" --- # Culture of Celebrity and Weblogs I judge the quality of a weblog by its **IDEAS**, but it seems some people equate quality with **popularity**. Is the ‘culture of celebrity’ that afflicts Western movies, television and radio creeping in to weblogs as well? These thoughts were prompted by [the recent weblog discussion](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.readwriteweb.com/2003/10/23.html#a135) on power laws and how they relate to weblogs. Actually the topic of discussion was whether your weblog operates in **broadcasting** mode, or **conversation** mode. The [ general consensus](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2003/10/24/defining_publish_and_broadcast.php) is that A-List bloggers (i.e. the most popular bloggers) are broadcasters, while the majority of us are in conversation mode. I accept the reason for this is that A-List bloggers *in general* are not able to converse with their many readers. And conversely, because C-List bloggers (my term for the rest of us) have relatively few readers, we’re much more able to participate in conversations with our readers. Comments by [ Bill Seitz](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://radiocomments2.userland.com/comments?u=105304&p=135&link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.readwriteweb.com%2F2003%2F10%2F23.html%23a135) and [Tom Coates](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/10/the_power_law_ican_and_weblogs.shtml) helped me to realise that these are *trends* and not necessarily applicable to every person. I’m a big fan of individualism, but I don’t mind tipping my hat to a generalisation every now and then – for the common good 😉 Nevertheless this whole conversation about ‘broadcasting mode vs conversation mode’ has made me uncomfortable. The reason is that at a deep level I object to the notion of classifying something based on **how popular it is**. Which brings me back to the A-List. Power laws [as they relate to weblogs](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html) are basically a **Popularity Index**. On the Web, popularity is measured by how many links a website receives. If you are at the head of a weblog power law, it means you have lots of incoming links and are therefore very popular – you’re on the A-List. It’s just like the movies. Bruce Willis is an A-List actor, because many people buy tickets to his movies (incoming links?) and therefore he is very popular. But consider this: do you think that all Bruce Willis movies are A-grade material? Would you compare Armageddon with Citizen Kane? Now consider this: just because a person is an A-List blogger, does it necessarily mean that person produces A-grade content? Don’t get me wrong, a lot of times A-List bloggers *do* produce A-grade content. There was an excellent comment made on [David Weinberger’s weblog, by Chris](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/002123.html) (responding to a comment by me): > “You can’t always say that the “A-List” isn’t quality, often it is. Why? Because they’re giving people what they want and have been for a while – they have the experience.” I agree. All I’m saying is that the A-List doesn’t *necessarily* produce quality content. Content should always be judged on its own merits. I strongly believe that ultimately it’s **ideas** you should judge and **not the person**. This is not a theory I’ve just suddenly come up with – it’s something I’ve blogged consistently about. For example, [Clay Shirky linked to me](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.corante.com/many/20030701.shtml#42653) back in July [when I wrote that](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://www.readwriteweb.com/2003/07/02.html#a74) weblogs should be topic-first, not author-first. Topics are a good way to classify ideas, which is why I’m a big fan of tools such as [k-collector](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://k-collector.evectors.it/itentdirectory/wwwwhome) and [Topic Exchange](https://web.archive.org/web/20040422182556/http://topicexchange.com/). Those tools **democratize** weblogging – because they give *readers* the opportunity to discover new voices who have written on topics of interest to them. And they give *writers* an opportunity to sit right alongside the “A-List”, if they happen to have written something on the same topic. My point is this: don’t judge the quality of a weblog on how popular it is. Read deeper and judge the ideas that have been expressed. Do you judge the quality of a movie on whether it has an A-List actor in it? If so, you are not exercising your mind. Judge the quality of a weblog on the value of its ideas. *Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/2003/10/26.html#a136))*