I spent most of the day Friday at the Personal Democracy Forum at Pace University in lower Manhattan, listening to various bloggers, Web innovators, political activists, media pundits, and, uh, Tom Friedman, talk about all the stuff that people talk about at these things: namely, themselves.
I came away with several impressions, which I’ll share in a column a little later, but the biggest one was this–these people are essentially talking about the same things they’ve been talking about since I started going to these conferences some three years ago. Of course, their lingo is a little savvier, their budgets a little bigger, and the blogosphere as a whole is a lot more mainstream than it was back then. But there’s an undeniable sense that everyone’s still making it up as they go along. That’s not a bad thing, since answers to the questions they’re asking (how to build effective online communities, for instance) aren’t easy to answer. But still, for all the change, it’s striking how little has changed.
Also, the next time someone tells you the blogosphere is “young” and “hip,” don’t believe the hype. I saw more gray ponytails this morning that I’ve seen in years. Each time one of the ponytails spoke up from the audience, they mentioned their blog. Middle-aged, ponytailed white men, the true face of the blogosphere.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.