The striving lives of little bloggers

By Carol Gee

Today, February 3, is officially "Blogroll Amnesty Day," AKA "Blogroll Bloodbath Anniversary Day. I call it "Blog Action Day." I learned about it in an earlier post here at The Reaction; I quote Michael's intro because I could not say it better:

Two of my favourite bloggers, Skippy and Jon Swift, have organized this admirable effort, Blogroll Amnesty Day. What's it all about? Well, it's about what Jon calls "the Golden Rule of Blogging: Blog unto others as you would have them blog unto you." Which is to say, in this respect: link, link, link! It's about linking to other blogs, supporting smaller blogs, and otherwise making connections and, even more, friends. Links are the "capital" of the blogosphere, but they are also what the blogosphere is really all about. Unfortunately, as I know well, it's hard for many bloggers to get the links they so badly want, namely, links from the A-listers, the big blogs that with a single link can generate enormous traffic. We all want those links from Kos and Atrios and Drum and C&L and all the rest, but, alas, those links aren't always forthcoming. And so we do what we need to do, linking to each other, supporting each other, forging connections, making friends, and otherwise building up the liberal/progressive blogosphere into a genuine network. That's what this is all about.

What happened -- Carl, one of my co-bloggers here at The Reaction, added a very informative history of the happening as the intro to his post day. His words gave me a real sense of how it must have been back then when the Precipitating Event was perpetrated: "Today is the anniversary of a dark day in Blogtopia. . .The unintentional (or perhaps intentional) consequence of BAD was to eliminate an awful lot of blogs from an awful lot of exposure."

I have often posted about bloggers that deserved recognition, or about what it means to maintain a "small" blog." April 10, 2005 -- "Big blog vs little blogs"; July 16, 2005 --"Form vs Content"; June 10, 2006 -- "Little blogs"; June 26, 2006 -- "Blogging as Catharsis"; July 27, 2006 -- "More Women Bloggers Needed".

So the idea this year is to link to smaller bloggers. As my beginning contribution to that effort I have developed an exclusive new Blogroll to my South by Southwest website. It recognizes those of us bloggers in this little community known as The Reaction by linking to each of their primary posting homes:

• Founder & Editor: Michael J.W. Stickings -- "The Reaction"
• Associate editor: Creature -- "State of the Day"
• Assistant editor: Libby Spencer -- "Last One Speaks"

Co-bloggers:

• AviShalom/MSS -- blogs at The Reaction
• Capt. Fogg -- "Human Voices"
• Carl -- "Simply Left Behind"
• Edward Copelend -- "Edward Copeland on Film"
• J. Kingston Pierce -- "Limbo"
• J. Thomas Duffy -- "The Garlic"

A poem to celebrate -- As my concluding section of today's post I have dashed off a copy of an old nursery rhyme that seems apropos to modify for the occasion. From "I'm a Little Teapot" -- from Wikipedia:

I'm a little blogger, short and stout.
Here is my handle (screen name), here is my spout (rant).
When I get all steamed up, then I shout.
Tip me over and pour me out.

A second verse (with motion) is also found at Wikipedia:

I'm a clever teapot, yes it's true.
Here's an example of what I can do.
I can change my handle to my spout (switch arm positions and repeat tipping motion).
Just tip me over and pour me out.

Have a good anniversary!

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)