Am I a narcissist?
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
I'm so pretty!
I was reading Penelope Trunk’s blog today and came across a comment that stopped me cold. It said, “Narcissist.. Narcissistic.. Self indulgent.. Tired…”
This person was verbally harassed by a number of other people (including me). Yet his comment speaks to a larger rift that is growing in the blogging community.
There is a camp of old school bloggers—mostly if not all composed of men—who think that How To blogs should be the only blogs on the Internet. How To blogs are the types of blogs that teach you How To Do something. There are millions of them. There are even blogs about how to blog. Interestingly, it’s mostly the How To Write a Blog bloggers who are most concerned about this issue.
These bloggers are apparently threatened by the huge growth of entertainment blogs, which are blogs that entertain you with story telling. They particularly seem to despise blogs about parenting and motherhood. Think of an Entertainment blog as a memoir, but much shorter. It tells a story about the author’s life. It’s the virtual version of David Sedaris or Nora Ephron in 800 words or fewer.
My blog is sometimes How To and sometimes Entertainment and, perhaps, sometimes dreadfully boring, but that’s neither here nor there.
The How To bloggers are so worried about entertainment blogs that they are running around calling us all narcissists. In case it’s been a while since you’ve studied for the SATs, a narcissist is someone who is in love with his own image.
You know what I have to say to being called a Narcissist? So doesn’t hurt. Come on, can you do any better than that? I’ve been called much worse. Oh, and I have one more thing to say. Is that the biggest word you know?
Here’s one blog that spends an inordinate amount of time hashing out this so-called issue: http://socialmediarockstar.com/social-media-rockstars-vs-narcissists
Really, this is a stupid argument. It’s like walking into a bookstore, pulling all of the memoirs off the shelves, sticking them in a pile, and burning them as you chant, “Narcissists! Damn narcissists!”
By the way, I’ve never heard anyone describe How To books as “great literature.” Nope, never happens. Memoirs on the other hand tend to win the Pulitzer. Just saying.
The Internet is a big place. It’s big enough for all of us. It’s not only big enough for How To blogs and Entertainment blogs, it’s also big enough for Good Blogs and Bad Blogs. It’s even big enough for Porn and the Christian Right. There’s enough space for all of us. Really, there is. And if you don’t like us self-absorbed Enough About You Let’s Talk About Me Types, then stop reading our stuff!
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