The Last Podcast

I thought hard if I was going to say anything about this. Hugh thinks that Facebook and Twitter have erased the A-list. That the A-list is dead.

Then suddenly, along comes stuff like Twitter and Facebook… et Voila! Suddenly, social networks start being successfully created without the “A-Listers” having to act like “Hubs” [or "Human Social Objects", if you want to get REALLY technical]. Suddenly, the need for A-listers to arbitrate “Who the Cool Kids are” [and who they aren't] is rapidly and thankfully diminished.

Obviously, that’s bullshit. Twitter and Facebook, if anything, have extended the reach of the A-list. And what do I think about that? Big fucking deal!

I could spend some time actually getting upset about this, but Deep Jive Interests, in one concise paragraph, breaks it down beautifully:

And in BOTH [Facebook/Twitter and blogging] cases, just as in ALL situations where human beings interact with limited attention spans, there will ALWAYS be folks who command more of it. There will ALWAYS be people at the top of the attention food chain, some in part because they deserve it, and some others because they are undeniably pretty to look at, in others, its the train-wreck phenomenon in that you can’t look away, and in others, because they just got there first.

To deny this fact is to deny reality.

For my short take: If Hugh can write something inept like this and get attention for it, he is a clear example that an A-list still happily exists.

We don’t live in some egalitarian utopia and the blogosphere is, if anything, even less of one. Not everybody has interesting things to say. Those who consistently say interesting things or are, for whatever reason, interesting in their own right (think Jason Calacanis) will make up the upper Echelon of the blogosphere. If you are able to start a discussion in the blogosphere - you are in the A-list.

That’s it. Story is over. Let’s move on and wait six months before the next blogger comes along and tries to pull this one again.