Kottke

And so Jason Kottke has announced he’s quit his job and is going to try blogging full time for the next year and, since he’s like an A-List blogger with seven years service, those who care for such things sit up and take notice. It’s an interesting one mainly because he’s not really doing anything out of the ordinary with his weblog. It’s about as tradblog as it gets. Most of the blogs that have made it “big” have done so because they’ve got a theme or a gimmick or they’re replicating some “normal” media thing in a blogging format, but Jason’s just blogging. Can he live off this? And if he does manage it, does it mean anything?

As usual I think it’s been blown out of all proportion. And I can kinda speak from experience because I did a similar thing a couple of years ago. When I quit my job and went to live on a farm for three months I was taking quite a risk. Admittedly my situation at that moment meant the risk didn’t feel that great but I needed help to do it, from friends driving the van that took my stuff into storage to my mate letting me borrow her room for a few weeks (thus saving rent money) to my family letting me stay with them rent-free when it was over, and many other favours small and large from many other people. I couldn’t have done it without them and I’m eternally grateful. And it strikes me Jason is doing the same thing, only whereas my network was based around my chums in the real world, his is based around a blogging community. Note the a blogging community. That’s important.

So often in this cyperspatial world of ours people confuse the pseudo-personal with the public. Understandably, because it’s all so terribly blurry, but confuse it they do. Jason Kottke may be the uber-blogger with the most hits but even though he has millions of readers he still only has a limited number of actual friends, and it’s those, the people who actually give a shit about whether he eats or not, who will help him achieve his goal. It might be nice to think that in our lovely interconnected internetty world strangers will help strangers, but they tend not to, at least not in any reliable monetary sense. But you can pretty much always rely on your friends to help and support you in your crazy decisions, because, without getting all soppy, that’s what they’re for.

So to the folk decrying Jason as an egotistical wanker, you’re kinda missing the point. He’s got this idea, that maybe the blogging medium can be something more than it current is without resorting to commercialisation, and he wants some help giving it a go, raising a pot of cash that will see him through it. And given the number of people he knows and, more importantly, has helped, who understand what he’s doing and why, I think he’ll reach that target.

I’m not one of them, I hasten to add, but if a good friend of mine had an interesting idea for a project that required he quit steady employment for a while, and if I could help in some way, chances are I would.

And that’s kinda the problem with this experiment. If it works and he is able to support himself through patronage then it’ll only prove that Jason Kottke is able to support himself through patronage. Yes, he’ll have developed a system by which to do it, but in order for it to work for you you’ll need to have a large established network of friends who understand what you’re up to and are able and willing to help. Maybe what you need is years of consistent work in the medium and a reputation for being a nice guy who tends to give more than he takes. Maybe that’s what the haters are so pissed off about.