AOL Vs. the "Real" Blogosphere

I came across a few things online today that got me feeling all defensive.  Let me tell you about 'em.

A blog called Sigmund, Carl and Alfred (as in Freud, Jung and Adler, respectively) had a deliberately provocative posting about the different behavior and attitudes of female versus male bloggers.  I wrote a very mild comment refuting this, and mentioned AOL in passing.  Some other commenter then had the following knee jerk reaction:

"Uh oh, AOLer sighting... "

That's it. That's the whole comment.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I can only assume that this person subscribes to the old newsgroup attitude (and now bloggers' attitude) that AOL is not the "real" Internet, and that AOL members are technophobic dunderheads who need AOL to do all the work for them. This idea seems to have carried over from the Usernet era to the brave new world of blogging.  Somehow, an AOL Journal is not quite respectable, not quite a "real" blog. I'm guessing that people think AOL-J is something you have because you don't know how to write HTML or use (much less customize) a Blogger template.  From what I've seen, the same attitude exists toward LiveJournal, albeit not as fervently.

    

Part of this is a technical compatability problem.  AOL-J and LJ don't mesh well with some blogging features used elsewhere.  I mentioned before that BlogShares doesn't track AOL-J automatically, and since then I've noticed that BlogExplosion was initially unable to put this journal in a frame for verification purposes. LiveJournal doesn't have a good place to put all those little buttons and banners advertising all those blogging cross-promotion schemes.  AOL Journals don't do this well, either, simply because the About Me area, the only place for such things, has a painfully cramped character limit.

But this says nothing about the intelligence or technical competence of AOL Journalers, let alone how interesting or worthwhile the blog may be.  I've been on AOL since 1993, and Prodigy before that, and never, ever subscribed to a plain vanilla ISP such as Earthlink or NetZero.  Yet I know more about computers than the rest of my office put together (which, granted, says more about them than about me). And I can't hold a candle to the technical expertise of Becky and others. There's plenty of "real Internet" savvy in AOL-J Land. I've seen lots of AOL Journals that are highly customized, with graphics in the sidebars, colors and backgrounds and photos in the entries.  (Not that that's the only thing that matters in judging a good blog.  It isn't.)

By the same token, I've seen blogs that use the same ugly orange Blogger template that Father Smith originally chose for St. Michael's, or an all black template, or something equally unattractive and uninspired.  These blogs have been never customized with art or photos in the template or the entries, or even an alternative font.  So who are the "real" bloggers?  Answer: we all are.  In fact, within the technical limitations, there are proportionately as many good users of visual blog elements on AOL as off AOL, and as many good writers, and as many people who know that the word it's should only be employed to mean "it is," never "belonging to it."

Furthermore, technical limitations aside, AOL is an addition to the blogging experience, not a subtraction from it.  As we've all had occasion to find out, AOL-J Land is a community.  We link to each other, read each other's postings, and participate in the same Weekend Assignments, courtesy of John Scalzi and AOL.  We celebrate holidays and milestones together. We care when someone's computer is stolen, and someone else needs to rescue her brother's dogs from a shelter hundreds of miles away.  We are supportive to each other, especially to those who especially need that support.  In a way, AOL-J Land is a kinder, gentler blogosphere than the big  one out there.  We get a few trolls, but really, overall, our version seems especially friendly and polite.

So I say unto you, "brethren and sisteren" (that's a Sondheim quote): go out into the greater blogosphere, and carry the AOL-J torch with you.  Show the people that a $9.95 monthly connection does not confer greater computer literacy than  a more expensive connection to a content provider such as AOL. Use blog listings and intelligent comments to expose your journals to other bloggers.  Perhaps then they will see that AOL Journals - and journalers - can be worthwhile after all.

Or am I overreacting again?

Karen

P.S. I almost forgot to mention: the other thing I saw that made me feel defensive was an entry about how overused the word "Musings" is in blog titles.  He's got me there.  But by the time I discovered this unfortunate fact, I'd aready committed to the title of this journal.  Besides, there's really no better title to describe what I'm trying to convey: entries inspired by the private world inside my head.