More reasons for an apology from Chris Pirillo

In October 2005 Chris Pirillo issued a call to shut down Blogspot, the website that I and millions of others use for blogging. I've gone over this issue several times before, and I don't feel the need to rehash it - you can read more about it here, or here. (You can also just Google the phrase "nothing but a crapfarm" to read Pirillo's original statement, or see the writings of sycophantic dittoheads everywhere who simply reproduced his statements and added things like "I agree entirely!")

My bottom line is this: not only is Chris Pirillo a snob about blogs and blogging, and demonstrably wrong in his assertions, he also owes millions of bloggers an apology. Bloggers who are using Blogspot to tell their stories, to share their lives, to do all those things that Anna Quindlen spoke of in her "Write for Your Life" essay. Not "an" apology. Individual apologies, one to each legitimate blogger whose writing and effort he has dismissed with a wave of his hand and a call to his minions.

(Interestingly enough, Chris Pirillo's own "blog" - which I have only visited a handful of times, all as a result of this incident - is not one of these "Write for Your Life" blogs, but is more a sort of technogeek update site, telling you about nifty gadgets that will be hopelessly obsolete in six months. Also interestingly, the blog that first made me aware of Pirillo's call, one that did fall into both the "Write for Your Life" and the "I agree entirely" categories, has not been updated in over six months. Maybe the blogger has lost interest in blogging. Maybe something else happened. I have no idea, and no way of finding out - and, trust me, I have tried.)

I don't expect an apology to me. If Chris Pirillo were interested in that, the time to do it would have been October 2005, or even October 2006, the two times I have mentioned this before and the two times he has deigned to visit my blog and grace it with his comments. No, my challenge - my instruction - to him was to go seek out legitimate Blogspot blogs and leave an apology there, in their comments. I haven't seen that yet.

I've been reading Ashley's Ink On Paper for a while now. It's a blog focused primarily on Ashley's efforts to become a writer, but not exclusively. Little glimpses into Ashley's life appear in her blog. Through her I discovered Tiffany's If I Were Queen of the World, a wider-ranging blog about Tiffany's life, adventures, and opinions. From there I was led this morning to A Whimsical Brain In A Pan* - and that's where I've spent much of the last four hours.

Go there. Read it. Read the posts about The Fire. Remember them the next time you're feeling sorry for yourself, or maybe a little achy, a little down. She doesn't want you to feel sorry for her. Read them.

Chris Pirillo, these three are all Blogspot bloggers. Kids from the blogging ghetto that you spit upon. They're just three of the millions of people you need to apologize to. I suggest you get started.

*This is Tiffany's fault! The real name is "The Babblings of Whimsicalbrainpan."