Thursday, March 03, 2005

coteries, cabals, nodes and blog-ommunities

As you no doubt already know, the big buzz around here is that Gideon Strauss has identified us (that is me, dad, Kent and Matt) as a "node of neocalvinist bloggers." We are very pleased by the extra bit of internet attention this has brought us (our readership is, as far as we can tell, predominantly ourselves and a few others, particularly james and dean, who are also part of the club).

What's exciting, I think, about this whole development, is that Mr Strauss has connected us with many other small communities of bloggers who are doing similar things. I imagined our blog-ommunity (as Matt cleverly put it) mainly as an online manifestation of what happens occasionally in real life. Some of us hanging out in the chapel basement talking about stuff. But the extra appeal of the blog thing is that it isn't time-binding - we can all access it when we have the time availible, and it had the possibility for a wider audience. And, in my opinion, it has only made our real-life community better. And we feel extra-special because my dad makes us intergenerational. And how exciting that this is going on elsewhere too! And that these separate communities can interconnect and perhaps even influence eachother.

Community + internet. I think it's fascinating.

As for terminology, I like Coterie because it reminds me of the reniassance. Matt likes Cabal because it sounds more sinister. I guess it's really just some people who know eachother blogging and then talking about it.

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