6 steps to disenchantment.

William Brafford

William Brafford grew up in North Carolina, home of the world's best barbecue, indie rock, and regional soft drinks. He just barely sustains a personal blog and "tweets" every now and then under the name @williamrandolph.

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20 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    Yeah, that’s why I date a new chick every 4-5 months. Hang around one too long and you find out she’s a crazy cat lady or something.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

      (I specifically got permission to post that comment before I posted it, for the record.)

      More seriously, it depends on why you visit the blog.

      I see The League, for example, as a group of guys at the bar. They take over the big booth in the corner and talk. This guy is the “libertarian nutball”, that guy is the “liberal nutball”, that other guy is the “paleo nutball”. Are they predictable? Hell, yes. They all go to the same bar, after all, and sit in the same booth, and yell about the same stuff. The beauty of the blog is that the folks all seem, pretty much, to like each other and argue with something approaching good humor.

      Now there are other blogs that go out of their way to *NOT* be like a bar.

      The mister-linky blogs like Instapundit round up links to everywhere but don’t offer up much of either community or commentary (there is a slant/bias, of course… but he’s got tons of plausible deniability if you try to corner him). Other blogs write (long!) essays much more infrequently and it’s hard not to see those as like sermons… and, yes, as a former evangelical, I can tell you that your minister will repeat himself. As a former evangelical, I can also point out that that is probably why he is your minister and not some other guy. When you tire of hearing about The Grace Of God for the umpteenth week in a row, you can go to the Babtists and hear about the fires of Hell or the ‘piscopalians and hear about how we need to be better stewards of all that God has given us or you can go to the Unitarians and hear about Christopher Columbus slaughtering the Indians who engaged in the practice of Gay Marriage… and you’ll quickly find out that the best indicator of the topic of next week’s sermon will be the topic of last week’s sermon.

      If one really wants to be challenged, I find, one goes to the bar where people disagree with one. With good humor, of course. That part is important.Report

      • greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

        makes sense to me. i have read a few hilarious liberal blogs that make great fun of conservative hijinx, but I don’t expect to learn anything from them, nor do I bother to post at them.Report

        • William Brafford in reply to greginak says:

          A good point, Jaybird. This is just about the sermon blogs. Maybe it’s like growing up Presbyterian, then hearing your first Baptist sermon and being fascinated, then realizing that after a while it’s no more interesting than where you started out.

          That being said, a good pastor is far more than a sermon machine, whereas the blogger-reader relationship doesn’t really go past posts and comments.Report

          • Until we can invent beer distribution via internet connection. Or maybe find some way to have an online first person shooter installed on the blog so that we could exchange rounds with the commentariat….

            Just thinking outside the box here. Good post, by the way. No pressure or nothin’.Report

  2. D-Chance. says:

    Would it be in bad form to note that Point 4 (Realize that the writer who drew you to the PBSIB repeats himself or herself quite a bit) is almost immediately preceded by a post from Freddie that begins: I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating? 🙂Report

  3. Will says:

    Oh dear. Has the League reached PABB stage?Report

  4. Freddie says:

    The problem is that politics is cyclical and our problems endemic, and sometimes certain things have to be said more than once, and if the consequence of that is people getting bored, I guess that’s how it has to be.Report

  5. Mike Farmer says:

    Yes, mine is predictable and boring, but that’s the price you pay when you’re on a mission. I say the same thing ten different ways, then start over.Report

  6. Herb says:

    Meh. Repetition isn’t the worse blog-crime. I’m guilty of it on my own blog. Sometimes it can be like a call-back to an earlier joke in a stand-up routine, sometimes it can be like the chorus to a song. Others it’s like a signature or a catchphrase. (If I had a dollar for every time Glenn Reynolds used HIS catchphrase, I’d be a rich man indeed. Heh.)

    The herd mentality (and its bastard cousin, knee-jerk contrarianism) is a much bigger bloggy annoyance, I’ve found.Report

  7. E.D. Kain says:

    The thing about repetition is that it can be perceived as just that when in fact it’s more of a process. I repeat myself endlessly but it’s mainly because I’m trying to work something out – publicly, like thinking out loud – and sometimes that means you end up repeating yourself but with a somewhat new spin. Or you are trying to unearth something deeper but to do that you have to cover old ground. I’m not saying this quite how I mean it, but I think what I mean is that sometimes the repetition is only part of the whole picture, and in reality it’s a work in progress rather than merely stale. Maybe I’m wrong.

    Freddie’s point is also spot-on.Report

  8. JosephFM says:

    I keep trying to start my own blog, but I feel like I rarely have enough to say – and when I do, it’s easier to say it here.

    But you’re right generally. This, combined with Jaybird’s point, is why I don’t much read the Dish anymore, but still frequent the Atlantic for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blog.Report

  9. jfxgillis says:

    Will:

    That reminds me. When was the last time you saw Kausfiles linked to from a high- or near-high-profile blog?Report

  10. E.D. Kain says:

    P.S. – This is seriously the most depressing post I’ve read in ages. What a trajectory we all face.Report

  11. Buce says:

    There’s yet one other constituency at issue here: the blog author himself. See: http://snipurl.com/thmvt [underbelly-buce_blogspot_com]Report