Why Bloggers Are Irritating
I’ve been thinking about how I cringe whenever I read myself making an aesthetic judgment, and I think the reason is pretty clear — unless you’re Daniel Mendelsohn, it’s hard not to see all “criticism” as Hansonian signaling. John Tierney’s column on the work of Geoffrey Miller is instructive in this regard.
The grand edifice of brand-name consumerism rests on the narcissistic fantasy that everyone else cares about what we buy. (It’s no accident that narcissistic teenagers are the most brand-obsessed consumers.) But who else even notices? Can you remember what your partner or your best friend was wearing the day before yesterday? Or what kind of watch your boss has?
Commenters who feel moved to write cutting remarks about bloggers make a lot of sense to me — the self-disclosure of the blogger is powerfully revolting, as it rests on the narcissistic fantasy. Or that’s how it comes across, at least.
I like to think of certain kinds of blogging as essentially personal, but volunteered to a slightly wider circle than one’s email or Twitter circle in the spirit of sharing and mutual exchange. Very few of my close friends read the things that I write for publication, and hardly any of them read The American Scene. As we all know, the tribe of blog readers is small and peculiar in a lot of ways. And so blogging has allowed me to meet a different set of characters, many of whom have become friends. This strikes me as tremendously fun and worthwhile. The signaling really is the point: the idea is to send out a beacon into the world to like-minded readers and listeners, some small number of whom will become friends. Of course, this is pretty different from the reproductive signaling that Hanson and Miller describe. If that’s your agenda, you’re probably best served by reaching out to a different audience. My sense is that our readership is hilariously, lopsidedly male. At the same time, I very much value having a large army of friends, and that could be some indirect signal. Now I see why Hanson is so taken with this idea …
Other kinds of blogging have a narrower journalistic focus — I’m going to start a policy-focused blog in June, for example, and my hope is that it will be signaling-free, or signaling-light.
P.S. This post, by the way, is prompted by my earlier post on a series on The WB. The post really annoyed reader paul h. And then my post really annoyed me. And then I thought, “What’s going on here?”
He wrote:
Okay, really, is it just me? It must just be me. But every single thing that Reihan Salam has written makes me roll my eyes wondering how anyone can be this precious and pretentious
Then I wrote:
paul h., I think you’re right. But before I put the gun to my temple, I think I’m going to have some french toast.
The french toast was delicious!
Sure, but a cost to that approach to weblogging is that you’ve abandoned the “Panorama” section that used to accompany this blog in the Douthat era. I miss that quite a lot, actually, and given the diverse fora for Reihan-related content I’d rather like to see something like it return. It might be pointless given the breadth of contributors here now and the range of non-_TAS_ venues where they write, but still.
— Sanjay · May 28, 04:38 PM · #
And, y’know, if it’s going to be a last meal, go waffles over f-t. After all you won’t have to clean the iron afterwards, which is the tricky bit. Either way right now it’s ideal to top with peaches, not syrup, because of seasonality.
Then again the toast seems to’ve filled you with pleasure sufficient to avoid the gun/temple thing, but, why take chances?
— Sanjay · May 28, 04:42 PM · #
Can’t be certain if its the same paul h., but I have one who insists in my comments that every time I ever complain about establishment media, for any reason at all, it’s because I’m jealous of people who went to Ivy League schools.
But you went to Harvard! He’s got nothing on ya.
Anyway, I think critical comments are good, obviously, but when they come in the flavor of “why would anyone read this”, etc., it’s worth quoting Airplane— “Shana, they bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, let ‘em crash.”
love Freddie
— Freddie · May 28, 04:52 PM · #
Sanjay,
I’ve missed that feature, too. We OWE our readership more frequent and briefer signals. Not paul h., though.
— Matt Frost · May 28, 04:53 PM · #
I liked Grand New Party, but have to agree with Paul H. Reihan Salam is basically a middle-period Wes Anderson movie reduced over a hot flame and poured into a human mold to cool.
— jake · May 28, 05:02 PM · #
Wearing a sarong is the best revenge.
— Tony Comstock · May 28, 05:03 PM · #
Fair enough, but seriously, what’s with the rapping?
— paul h. · May 28, 05:43 PM · #
Actually let me be far more precise than my annoyed two-line comment earlier. You, Reihan Salam, are extremely brilliant and often insightful; but I just can’t help but be annoyed by certain tics of your blogging. I’m guessing that in person it comes across as boisterious joi de vivre, or whatever!
— paul h. · May 28, 05:48 PM · #
I have to admit that now that Reihan spends less time being consumed by out of control gynoids and/or reminiscing about beautiful, brilliant friends of his and their troubles, I find his posts a little bit less accessable. Still, there’s nothing else like them, so keep it coming.
— J Mann · May 28, 06:42 PM · #
Tony,
Of course you mean, wearing a sarong while watching the excellent Terminator 2 is the best revenge.
I would point out that the Terminator, too, engages in signalling behavior, heartless machine though it is. It probably has one hell of a twitter feed, too.
— Sanjay · May 28, 06:57 PM · #
I endorse Paul H.
— Adam Greenwood · May 28, 07:22 PM · #
I just like to rap! I can’t help it. If anything, this is reverse-signaling. Anyone who raps as often and as badly as I do should probably be julienned like a potato.
— Reihan · May 28, 07:52 PM · #
“I’m going to start a policy-focused blog in June, for example, and my hope is that it will be signaling-free, or signaling-light.”
I think this is why people get so frustrated with most of your posts—the signalling and the policy are so hard to tell apart.
— Boz · May 28, 08:23 PM · #
RE: Signaling
The signaling most appropriate here would be the venerable hanky-code. In leu of that, I’ll speak plainly. I’m looking for a power-bottom. Those without muscular glutes need not apply.
— Tony Comstock · May 28, 08:29 PM · #
Boz:
Perhaps there’s no distinction. This exercise gets absurd very fast, i.e., I’m signaling that I care — because I care! Or not. I’m responding to your comment because I like the idea of a conversation with strangers. This in turn signals … openness to new ideas?
Or maybe we can just assume good faith.
— Reihan · May 28, 09:07 PM · #
Readers should observe,
Whenever the blogger raps:
It could be much worse.
— Sanjay · May 28, 09:25 PM · #
Let Reihan Be Reihan!
I for one enjoy his singular style.
— Conor Friedersdorf · May 28, 09:30 PM · #
my readership has been 90% male for years. i’ve taken several surveys.
— razib · May 28, 09:41 PM · #
I don’t blog, I comment. Blogging’s for the Bougoisie. I don’t like to be tied down. I like to see the the countryside. I like popping up here and there, freaking out the sqaures, moving on. I’m a fully paid-up member of the Autodydacts Union and as such, I like commenting on a variety of issues. It don’t matter what the topic is—Sotomayor, Hobbs, Kobe—I just play the changes as they come. Sometimes late at night and far from home, when the rubes have no idea of what I’m laying down, I get lonely. Catblogs make me lonely. The Valve makes me really lonely. But all nights end. You step out into the blue early morning, say hello to the birds, roll a ciggy, and boogie on down the road. It’s called freedom.
It’s life I’ve chosen, and I would choose no other.
— cw · May 28, 10:20 PM · #
Reihan, your posts are awesome. Keep ‘em coming!
— Joules · May 28, 10:26 PM · #
What if it’s signals, all the way down?
— tom · May 29, 02:39 PM · #
Why are bloggers irritating? Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
— ell · May 29, 03:23 PM · #
What if it’s signals, all the way down?
This.
— Freddie · May 29, 03:55 PM · #
Huh. Like-minded readers and listeners? Not me. The reason I find you so fascinating and worth reading is that we are so not like-minded.
— Edward Bohls · May 29, 04:21 PM · #
Reihan, can you challenge these guys for the Young Conservative Rapper title? Will it be like 8 Mile, or another Tupac-And-Biggie tragedy?
I became addicted to this page after seeing Reihan sing “Oliver’s Army” a few years ago – I’d like an encore, with a reflection on if the tune is more hopeful or sadder or nostaglic when performed now.
As far as cultural capital name-dropping, no. I don’t get that impression. If you find this precious, you don’t know really precious people.
— Rortybomb · May 29, 08:08 PM · #