Bloggers' Dirty Little Secret:

They're nicer than their blogs.

That's the discovery made by William Blismeier, a Texas fifth grader who contacted 73 bloggers and heard back from 21 for an American Studies essay assigment on current events and the Internet. William chose to write about the Iraq war, a topic that has obviously generated some of the most blistering heat and nastiness in the blogosphere. As he writes in a follow-up e-mail, the response caught him by surprise:

I was having problems with how to write about the war because the replies from bloggers were much nicer than my dad and me read on their blogs.

William solved his problem in that time-honored American Studies way -- he found an analogy in the world of sports:

Last summer I went to a Giants game in San Francisco with [my uncle] and met Barry Bonds. He was much nicer in person than I read. My dad taped the baseball steroid scandal on cable and one night we watched it while we talked about my essay and my uncle said that if bloggers were different than their blogs then they were like Barry Bonds was. So I decided to write about how bloggers are different on blogs than they are in emails about the war, just like Barry Bonds is different in person than you read about being nasty. Although it was my uncle's idea the essay was all mine and I called it Iraq, Bloggers, and Barry Bonds.

What William has revealed is that a lot of the nastiness flying around in the 'Sphere is . . . an act. It's an adaptation to a climate where it's only the biggest explosion, the messiest scandal, or the down-and-dirtiest verbal food fight that gets our shredded, harried attention. It hasn't gone unnoticed that it's the most polarizing, antagonistic bloggers who get the most hits. Those who care about traffic (and who doesn't, on some level?) adapt accordingly. Michele Catalano of A Small Victory recently blogged about being a successful but weary practicioner of the art (hat tip: The Glittering Eye):

Sometimes people ask me, how do you become a popular blogger? How do you make a name for yourself and get readers? I'll tell you. Controversy. Raging anger. Venom and spitfire. That's what sells, for the most part. If you aren't a forerunner in the specific area of blogging you want to get into (those guys have it good, they can just be themselves), you have to carve a niche and more likely than not, that niche needs to be carved with a serrated knife coated in lemon juice and salt. Leave some scars and some pain. That will bring them running (yes, I've been there, done that, too. And apologized for it I still haven't been able to wash the stench off my keyboard yet). . . . And never, ever admit to being wrong about anything. . . .

Controversy, people. That's where it's at. Be a controversial vigilante. . . .

[T]his is not sour grapes or jealousy. I still get about 9k hits a day. I'm making decent ad money. And I am quite enjoying the blogging that I'm doing the past few months. I'm just sick of what the blogosphere looks like these days. . . . It's ugly out there.

William has discovered that some blog biggies aren't nearly as UGGGLLEEEE as they pretend to be. A sad comment, perhaps, on the definition and price of success these days. William Blismeier's story, however, has a happy ending:

I got an A- on my written and an A+ on my presentation to the class. . . . Only one kid got a higher grade and she had help with her dad's camcorder.

- amba

UPDATE:

There is something quintessentially American about substituting insults for the genuine engagement of opponents' ideas. It is, after all, part of our national tradition. In her book "Affairs of Honor," historian Joanne B. Freeman writes that the Founding Fathers operated in a similar setting during the early days of the Republic. The political arena in particular was a world of "regional distrust, personal animosity, accusation, suspicion, implication, and denouncement." According to Freeman, insults were frequently flung through gossip, newspapers and pamphlets. Certain epithets -- "coward, liar, rascal, scoundrel and puppy" were widely considered fighting words."

- "Preaching Incivility," by Jabari Asim, The Washington Post, Monday, April 18, 2005

Asim goes on to quote my friend Marc Barasch, who has a hot -- and heartening -- new book out right now. If this quote intrigues you, check out his book:

Marc Ian Barasch says our volatile society has enabled the rise of demagogues and media personalities "who can crystallize your grievances into one primal yawp of venom."

The author of "Field Notes On The Compassionate Life" [Rodale Press], Barasch described our social and political climate as "a schoolyard sort of paradigm in which you have some really loud kids taking over the monkey bars and drowning out everyone else."

(Sounds like the schoolyard -- er, blogosphere -- we know.)

He told me civility isn't possible without empathy, which he defined as the basis of kindness. "Everything that lasts in society is based on understanding that the other person exists."

Sounds good, I said, but don't nice guys finish last? What's the use of advocating tolerance, civility and compassion if your less tenderhearted opponents will simply stomp on you and laugh in your crushed remains?

"I think there's such a thing as righteous anger," Barasch said. "You don't just roll over. I'm with Emerson, who said your goodness must have an edge to it, else it is nothing. Kindness isn't necessarily weak."

Comments

[Tom Strong]

This seems very likely to be true. I've found, in being a commenter on other people's blogs (and sporadically blogging myself), that kindness and courtesy just don't pay off much on the internet. Oddly, I find that as I've grown older, they pay off more and more in my "real" life -- especially courtesy.

It's amazing, in fact, how many successful bloggers seem to cultivate the image of being, basically, Insufferable Little Pricks (I mean that in a gender-neutral manner). I.e., Dean Esmay, Michelle Malkin, Josh Marshall, Atrios, and so forth. You may love them, but you're much more likely to hate them, and in fact the more hate they receive the more successful they are.

As a reader of blogs, I try and gravitate towards ones that strike more moderate tones, but like a moth to flame, the nasty ones bring me back time and time again.

I do find your blog in particular to be a respite from these, as it's one of the few I know where the author regularly expresses doubt.

[Dave Schuler]

I've never corresponded with any of the other bloggers you name but Dean Esmay is one of the nicest, most decent guys I've ever corresponded with. As far as I'm concerned he's an absolute prince.

[Dave Schuler]

That having been said I do believe that red-meat blogs get more hits.

[amba]

I never had the impression of Dean's World being a "mean" blog. Emphatic, maybe. But that's good.

[Tom Strong]

I was in a pretty irritable mood when I wrote the above comment, and Dean's World was not unrelated to my irritation. Which was probably unfair, not to mention insufferable of me (ironic, I know!)

That said, without trying to distinguish between "emphatic" and "mean", I think Dean plays pretty rough, and doesn't acknowledge doubt very often. Yes, he has some pretty unconventional opinions, but he still stakes out polarizing stances within them. As a liberal, going to his site is a learning experience, but is almost always exhausting.

And you know what? God bless him for it. Politics is a rough game, and I think we need a rough media and a rough blogosphere to go with it. Just how rough, however, is up for question.

In case it wasn't clear from my first comment, I love all the above blogs (well, OK, I'm actually pretty so-so on Malkin, but I read her too from time to time). And I don't doubt that Dean, or any of the others, are nice people. But, to varying degrees, they can all get pretty nasty.

[Dan Schneider]

I first heard about this kid's essay last month on Daniel Drezner's blog, as he was apparently inspired, or his dad was, by my essay on the war- http://www.cosmoetica.com/B194-DES136.htm.
In reponse to Tom's comment I have to agree regarding his opinion of Esmay, whom I take to task in my essay for his deceits and apologism for the war. However, I don't know where one draws the line between an act and not. It should be noted that most blog commentors are not children, and even a Klansman is likely to not be as nasty to a young black child as an adult.
That said, I argued this point on another blog a month or two ago, with another of the seemingly infinite # of dissenters that Esmay has banned from his echolalic little blog. In having scanned Esmay's blog it is clear that he is not playing with the proverbial full deck- be it from his AIDS Denial theories to his bizarrely racist sneers about black people to his exhibitionistic tendencies- such as announcing his Tourette's Syndrome to the world.
My take is that his 'act' is not, merely an extension of whatever he is in the 'real world'- pro or con. Same with a Malkin and her bizarre self-loathing racism, or any of the other deluded folk on the Left or Right.
Unless evidence is availed to the contrary it is probably best to take things at their face values, lest get lost in some Freudian labyrinth of another's mind.
I do agree that yelling and temper tantrums garner more heat in the short run, but the light quickly fades. DAN