It was Michael Blowhard (whose 2 Blowhards site is one of the best treasure troves on the internet) who first suggested*** that bloggers are performance artists and that those of us who “follow” blogs are in fact following serial dramas [scroll down to the comment posted at 3:29 a.m.] [e.a.]:
If you follow blogs, you’re checking in on “characters” — Terry Teachout, Neil Kramer, Alice in Texas. (Each of whom is, to some extent, a kind of performance artist.) And stories semi-sorta evolve out of this. If you’ve got a circle of blogs (and bloggers) you follow, it can almost be like being a fan of a soap opera — all these familiar characters, going on and on …
If “Blowhard” is right about blog readers being voyeurs and bloggers being a species of exhibitionist—and he is—then Andrew Sullivan must be the undisputed barometer (or performance artist) of the political blogosphere. Everyone is watching Sullivan’s political journey to see where he goes next.
Last night, Sullivan quoted one of his readers, who is hanging on his every move:
Herewith, a prediction: by Labor Day, you will have long since given up on Obama and will be advocating the election of McCain. For all the reasons the various villains of the Republican Party hate him, and for the fact that he more closely matches your policy wishes than Obama does or ever will, he will be your man.
I have a feeling, once the prospect of Hillary being president is safely foreclosed, so will your support for Obama be. At least I hope so.
But it’s not just Sullivan’s readers (as well as yours truly, a devoted if often frustrated and irritated fan) who’s are addicted to the drama queen’s arias. George Packer, who just wrote a piece for the New Yorker dissecting the death of the conservative movement, is also a Sullivan follower:
I read Sullivan every day, partly to find out how far his disenchantment will carry him in the very strange direction of Obama-style uplift—how long his temperament will win out over his ideas.
Wherever Sullivan goes, we follow along (which is different from following, of course). But still …
Hats off!
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***I’m not an internet scholar, so I don’t know if “Michael Blowhard” was actually the first to suggest this. However, he’s the first person I read who suggested this, so he’s first in my book.
