Pearls Before Swine
Tim Blair takes issue with Andrew Sullivan for taking $200k from the blogosphere and still needing a vacation:
Planning his vacation, Sullivan thanks readers for “the financial support that has kept this blog alive and well.” (Two hundred grand and he still couldn’t afford a blogroll? Way to share the bloggy wealth, Andrew.) Other sites—many other sites—have done more with less.
Sullivan’s massive blog earnings have ended up funding a Euro-Middle Eastern stroll with time off to write a book. His next pledge drive might deliver a substantially lower return.
Sullivan was one of the first bloggers I read, and in the aftermath of 9-11 I read him, Den Beste and Instapundit more than newspapers or magazines.
However, Sullivan was always flakey. His sexuality overshadowed much of what he wrote, and I often wished he would keep the subject away from his penis. It wasn’t his best writing.
Beginning awhile back I noticed that Sullivan was becoming more unstable, and I found more consistent writing elsewhere. I haven’t read him in almost two years.
Still, I’m disappointed that the first professional blogger didn’t set a better example for the rest of us who pay for the privilege of spouting off, and get the same traffic in a year as what he gets on a good day.
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Here’s my beef–and I’m not picking on you because the phenomenon strikes me as ubiquitous–I increasingly think it’s just plain unseemly to slam other bloggers. If you don’t like what a guy is doing or saying, and you don’t want to engage him in discussion, why not, you know, just ignore him?
I see all these anti-Sully threads and they make me queasy. Perhaps it’s from the unsettling experience of seeing people do that to me. Yes, I understand, people can talk about whatever they want, but the more time goes on the more I find myself refusing to say anything at all about any blogger whose behavior I don’t like.
I think it makes my blog better, I really do.
(Please don’t take this personally.)
Comment by Dean Esmay — 2/4/2005 @ 2:36 am
You know, I take more of that back. I mean it really is a bit much the way some bloggers dogpile on each other, but Sully’s behavior is genuinely exasperating.
I also don’t think he understands something: he’ll probably never have the kind of popularity he once had again. He’s blown it.
Comment by Dean Esmay — 2/4/2005 @ 7:19 am
Dean
Exasperating is the key.
Sullivan is an excellent writer, and some of his posts were downright sublime. Ditto Den Beste - but Den Beste has an excuse (his failing eyesight).
Sullivan’s behavior just makes all of us bloggers look unprofessional. Granted, we’re not pros, but if we are going to stand up to them we’re going to have to act like them to a certain degree - and that means not becoming exhausted, not letting the flamers get us down, not giving up.
I don’t think Sullivan’s departure is going to cause any long term damage; events will sweep past him and those of us riding that wave will too. But it does strengthen the position of those who call us rank amateurs.
Comment by Scott Kirwin — 2/4/2005 @ 8:50 am
I don’t see why fellow bloggers should be off limit for comment and/or criticism. Surely in the long term it makes blogs more valid, genuine. It’s part of the problem with the MSM that they’re like an old boys club and close ranks when one of the them screws up.
As for AS, I know so many people who gave up on him, if not for his lack of backbone over the war and constant over the top harping on Abu Graib, then for his histrionic ranting over gay marriage. Too bad, he really is an intelligent fellow, he just needs to grow up a bit.
Comment by Ligneus — 2/4/2005 @ 9:16 am
Re: Andrew Sullivan.
I posted recently on Andrew Sullivan and how after having a hissy fit over the…
Trackback by Spicedsass — 2/4/2005 @ 10:07 am