Nanas in Pyjamas
We haven’t posted anything, as yet, about that ill-fated rethug endeavour Open SourcePyjamas Media. Watching a claque of provincial wannabe-journo fuckwits trying to position themselves as the right-wing opposition to the media corporations just isn’t that interesting.
But then I found this comment by Richard Bennett at the Daily Pundit, which seems to sum up the whole enterprise nicely.
Ugly people need their own version of Huffington Post so I wish them well, but it’s not looking too good so far.
For readers who have no idea what I’m wittering on about, here’s the potted history of Pyamas Media from the IT industry analysts at Threadwatch:
It’s hard to imagine a worse entry into the blogosphere than those idiots at pyjamas media (now, but hopefully soon to change, open source media) have pulled. How can you be so utterly clueless — who did their research, who’s in charge of PR, who gives a flying fuck? Other than it’s amusement value, which is probably the best thing they’ll ever produce, what good is a bunch of old farts demonstrating that they dont get it to the internet at large?
Astonishing stuff.
I’ve been avoiding this story a little bit, as it really didnt interest me very much when it first started to break. But over time, it just gets worse, and worse, and worse.
One clumsy, foot in mouth blunder after another — really, you’d have to work damn hard to plan something like this.
Here’s the VERY short version:
- A bunch of old journo types form to start a blog network
- The call themselves “pyjamas media” as a working title
- The get $3M in funding (bubble bubble, Dana explains that best)
- They rename as “open source media”, yeh yeh, all very good untill…
- The clueless fuckwits realize they’ve stolen the name of a very well respected (in blogging terms) media firm
- Then, not content to stop their, in response, they piss off every blogger on the net by belittling the medium and trivalizing their theft
Way to go dumbarses…
Way to go indeed. And heh.
Hilarious as all this is, there’s a serious point here: most of us who blog don’t do it for the money. What would be the point? Most of us blog, well, because we can, and it all adds to the sum of humans’ knowledge about each other and how we all live. A little more understanding, whether of what’s actually happening in the world, (as opposed to what the media companies choose to feed you) or whether it’s getting some empathy with and insight into the mind of someone thousands of miles away, that you’ll never get to meet ot even speak to – it has to be a good thing.
Whenever the mainstream media take ‘wry’ look at the ‘blogging phenomenon’ it’s always the loudest blogs they go to, which means idiots, and usually rightwing white male idiots, just like those who’ve bought into the whole PJ pyramid-selling scheme.
As someone who’s been blogging since 2001 ( and Martin for longer) I’m sick and tired of being misrpresented by late-to-the-game twats like these. Call me an unreconstructed lefty, but I still cling to the ideal of blogging as samizdat.
That’s why my own blog doesn’t do blogads or beg for money – it’s not like money wouldn’t be bloody useful, it would – but the minute you bring money into the equation… well, just look at the debacle that is Pyjamas Media, and you’ll see what I mean. What a bunch of nanas.
