March 25, 2003

Post-Warblog Warblogging Harry has changed

Post-Warblog Warblogging

Harry has changed his nom-de-html from Steele to Hatchet. He's got a bee in his bonnet about the term "warblogger," which is fair enough-- a lot of webloggers don't like the term. I don't care about the term one way or the other, but I think Harry's definition of warblogging (trying to log "every detail of the military campaign" and eschewing "opinion") would exclude a great many warblogs. Most of them, in fact. Matt Welch's blog, which Hurry up, Harry resembles in many ways, is in a sense the quintessential warblog, and the origin of the term (hence the name). It is great, and it is all opinion, no military details, and in fact rather often has nothing to do with the war.

I think he sees "warblogger" as a pejorative he'd like to duck out of. Maybe it is at that. You can call yourself anything you want. For the same reasons, people used to say "I'm not punk, I'm new wave"; then "I'm not punk, I'm hardcore"; then "I'm not hardcore, I'm post-punk"; then "I'm not post-punk, I'm alternative," etc. The main result of this process is that it's almost impossible to find anything at a British record store if you've missed more than four issues of the NME. Many came back to "punk" after the ride on the category-go-round-- the few that cared; they were all a bunch of punks anyway, however, though they were arguably at their best before the complex taxonomy set in.

Anyway, it's all good, as the kids say. And I did learn, from Harry's post, of Angela Gunn's USA Today warblog, which seems grand, in a post-psych pre-hardcore anti-mod neo-eclectic retro-journo garage-synth drum-n-bass faux-surf emo skate-core butt-rock sort of way.

Posted by Dr. Frank at March 25, 2003 01:48 PM | TrackBack