When in the Course of online events it becomes necessary for alienated and isolated bloggers to dissolve the existing blogging hierarchy and exclusionary behavior which have disconnected them from the A-List and made them feel even more nerdy, and to assume among the multitude of powers they wish they had, the equally unattainable station to which the Laws of It Ain’t Fair entitle them, a decent respect for The Onion and Al Gore requires that they should write yet another post no one will ever read to declare the many real and imagined causes which impel them to the third party affected and now ironically embraced separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evidently pie in the sky, that all bloggers are created equal, that they are endowed by their Computers and iPhones with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are lots and lots of Links, Thoughtful Comments and the pursuit of AdSense Dollars. – That to secure these rights, lots of Wailing and Moaning is inserted into Blogs, deriving their literary powers from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical video-blogged nerdathon, – That whenever any Ze Frank or Ze Frank equivalent becomes destructive of these ends by monopolizing all the viewers who would otherwise be watching videos of Star Trek impersonations, it is the Right of the Bloggers to use their webcams, lightsabers and YouTube to alter or to abolish it, and to achieve new levels of self humiliation, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their rapidly diminishing Technorati Ranking and Google Juice. Technorati, indeed, will dictate that the Blogosphere long established months ago should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that new bloggers are better suited to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to deny the A-Listers the celebrity to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the Mythical Endless Ad Dollar and a link from Om evinces a design to reduce them to absolute Isolation and Silence, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw another Blogofit, and to demand a new relational structure for their future security. -Such has been the patient sufferance of many Bloggers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to start posting cat pictures with misspelled and allegedly funny cat quotes. The history of the present Gatekeepers is a history of repeated exclusions and the turning of deaf, furry ears, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the Blogosphere. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a sleepy world.
They have refused to respond to conversational overtures, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
They have ignored posts of immediate and pressing importance, unless emailed till their Attention should be obtained; and when so emailed, they have utterly neglected to reply.
They have called together ludicrously entitled conferences and unconferences at places unusual and uncomfortable, for the sole purpose of fatiguing us into believing that they were right not to invite us.
They have refused for a long time, to cause others to be admitted to Techmeme, whereby the Aggregating Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the Bloggers at large for their exercise; the Blogosphere remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from cat blogs within, and convulsions of laughter from little old ladies without.
They have made all of Web 2.0 dependent on Advertising alone for the tenure of its offices, and the amount and payment of its salaries.
They have combined with others in formal and informal affiliations to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our desires to be popular, and unacknowledged by our moms.
They have plundered our right to bigger feed counts, ravaged our prospective link counts, burnt out our minds, and denied us links from lots of other people.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Posted for Redress in the most irritable terms: Our repeated Posts have been answered only by repeated silence. An A-Lister, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a meanie, is unfit to be the ruler of a utopian and unrealistic blogosphere.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Old Media brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their laid off and soon to be reporters to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here at the end of the long tail. We have appealed to their journalistic standards and arrogance, and we have conjured them by the hair of our chinny chin chins to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our reader counts and inbound links. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the so-called New Media, Enemies when they ignore us, in Linkage Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the New Blogosphere, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Scoble of the internet for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the solitary bloggers, solemnly publish and declare, That these disjointed Blogs are, and of Right ought to be Free and Incoherent Blogs, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the old Blogosphere, and that all connection between them and the old Blogosphere, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Incoherent Blogs, they have full Power to converse with each other, conclude open and free blogging Alliances, establish Cross-Blog Conversations, and to do all other nerdly Acts and other geeky Things which Independent Blogs may of right do. – And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of our day jobs, we mutually pledge to each other our Blogs, our Links and our sacred Attention.
Newsome.Org 