I was actually going to just do up an open-thread post on the subject of--well, look, it was just a one-liner, really:

"Premise: Nick Denton is to blogging as Dick Clark is to rock-and-roll. Discuss."

But then I realized I didn't really have anything else to offer, and posting just a snarky inside-blogging remark like that would be so . . . so . . . Wonkette.

Well, minus the sodomy, I mean.

I wouldn't give a fig about Wonkette, but then when I see things like this, I get really irked and my penchant for bad analogies goes into overdrive.

See, I figure if blogging is anything, it's punk. It's putting the creativity back in the hands of the fans instead of the starmakers. It's the big finger to the media, in the same way that the Sex Pistols were the big finger to prog-rock dinosaurs and dirty, dirty hippies.

If you look at it like that, you realize you have to make a decision: Are you playing for the bucks or are you playing for the fans?

I'm not saying you can't do both to an extent. On the other end of the spectrum from Wonkette you've got bloggers who moan that their work is e'er unappreciated, overlooked, forsaken--when the sad fact of the matter is, their work just isn't very good. Or, alternately, their work's not bad, but they won't do the things you have to do to get noticed.

I tried getting my boyfriend into blogging. He immediately complained that no one read him. I said, you've been at this for three days. Give it time.

A week later, same thing: No one reads him. No one links him. I said, do you give any links OUT? You gotta give to get, honey bunches of oats. Do you try to leave comments at other bloggers' sites, not to whore your work, but to provide a little feedback while still getting your name out there? Are you approaching this cooperatively, or are you approaching this ivory-tower style?

So I understand that you have to try to hit a happy medium, where you're focused enough on gathering readers that you'll send the trackback, leave the comment, maybe even drop an e-mail . . . but not so focused on it that you become a total whore.

But I think at some point, and especially if you're female . . . at some point you have to accept that a certain portion of the crowd--a LARGE portion of the crowd--just wants the schlock. A certain portion of the crowd just wants Justin Timberlake to rip your bra off in public.

So what? You don't have to play to them.