Wednesday, August 01, 2007

When special places become a bit less special

A few years ago, when I discovered that other people in Buffalo were blogging, a community of sorts started to develop, in fits and starts. Gradually that community got larger and larger, and as it did so, it started to separate itself out a bit into somewhat-discrete groups, ultimately with two "collectives" basically becoming the big wheels of it all. Now one of those collectives has caught the other behaving badly, and is itself behaving as though it has pulled off some kind of grand journalistic expose of the kind you used to see in the heyday of Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here at my computer, plugging away at the only blog I've ever owned, as the only person who's ever written the posts here, wondering why it is we never have BloggerCon's anymore. Now I know. We stopped being a bunch of happy people with blogs, and instead declared ourselves -- well, some of us, anyway -- "citizen journalists", pratting on about "New Media" and "Information for the 21st Century" and all that jazz.

Oh well. Obviously the Buffalo blogging community couldn't stay the way I liked it forever -- but it would have been nice had it stayed that way a little longer.

9 comments:

All Things Jennifer said...

As a part of the Buffalo Blogging community who also has been treading along blogging *all things* as always, I do recall trying to get ideas out there about a BloggerCon a while ago and having about 2-3 people respond at best. Sigh...sometimes, at least for me, it is best to try to organize activities with the people, the friends, I already never see because I have seemingly been out of town nearly every weekend this summer, or at least had something planned. (I blame this on Mark ;) a whole additional set of friends/family and calander engagements! Ok, not exclusively, but it has been really busy.) No one else even tries to get the Buffalo Bloggers together...and no *group* is doing any kind of exclusive activites that I know of either.

Sorry if I let you down...I haven't even had time to devote to my blog the way I want to the last few months, let alone try to bring together bloggers.

Kelly Sedinger said...

The last thing I'm trying to say here is, "Why doesn't Jen get off her butt and organize a BloggerCon!". Believe me.

All Things Jennifer said...

I know, but the guilt always hits...damn depressive soul.

LC Scotty said...

Mini blogger con? For what it's worth, the best blogger event I've ever been to was the one you suggested, Jaq. I say we repeat something like that at any one of our beautiful parks. Your family and Jen (with Mark) is more than sufficient draw to get Casa de Chuckles on the road, and a small group like that ought to be fairly easy to schedule...

I say the three of us pick a day and do it, and invite everybody. If we get a big turnout, great. If not, that's just as great.

Anonymous said...

Well, for what it's worth, Chris and I were talking yesterday about doing a Bloggercon again soon. I can sense the disappointment that many have about what's happened, but I still see this whole blogging thing as a community, and I just got through defending Jen, Kelly, Craig, and Torke - all of whom either began blogging about local stuff way before me, or around the same time - against a charge that before Buffalo Rising "no one" was posting positive stuff about goings on in Buffalo.

It's that kind of ignorance mixed with arrogance that really upsets me, and I never, ever forget the days when I posted stuff into the ether, knowing that at best maybe 12 people would read it.

Also, I see what all of the (I guess we can call them "indie") bloggers contribute on a day to day basis as little steps we can all take to get the word out about why Buffalo and WNY are special.

All Things Jennifer said...

Ok, checking calendar...what about weekend of August 18th and 19th?

Kelly Sedinger said...

Unfortunately, August is pretty much taken up for me.

The best way to plan stuff like this, I'm thinking, is to plan it WAY in advance. For instance, my church's annual picnic is Aug 12 -- and they had that in the calendar way back in March.

So maybe we should be planning a Christmas Blogger Party. (And hey, that way we can give gifts. I've got a vegetarian cookbook I'm sure I can unload on Scotty....)

All Things Jennifer said...

Hmmmm. Or a Blogger Family Thanksgiving?

Jen14221 said...

What about BLOG-TOBER FEST at the Central Terminal in September?