We the Entitled

I read through a lot of information every day; News from mainstream, opinion columns, press releases, industry news, and blogs (with opinions on all of it). And while reading what the blogs are reporting on I have felt an less than positive undercurrent I couldn't quite put my finger on... until now. The undercurrent I have been feeling is the aura of entitlement in the words and opinion of too many bloggers.

Case in point; Mark Jen gets fired at Google, and in his own words, understands the position and actions of Google even if he does not agree. But, in posts like here, and here, other bloggers have come down on Google as if Google was behind everything evil in the world and scream about how unfair everything is.

Another case in point; A person wanders into an art gallery and is told that pictures of the (for sale) art work are not allowed (story here). I imagine in the original context of what was happening was that the writer found a humorous photo and wanted to share it with friends, and wanted to be in the picture with the art. But after the oh-my-goodness rude treatment by the store manager, SUDDENLY, we have a cause!

NOW the story is about bad marketing and lost opportunity and others have jumped to the 'cause'. Never mind that in writing her rant she did not link to the artist or offer up any support to overcome the shortcomings she was so concerned about, nor was she in the gallery on the artists behalf in the first place.

It's this aura of entitlement that bloggers have started to wear. It sometimes feels like we are being dismissed as silly if we don't see things their way. Their opinions are stated as facts, and anyone else with facts that disagree are told they are offering biased opinion. It's high school, the in-crown and clubs all over again. People are told they are stupid, talked down too. Too many of the bloggers arguments and rants have a whole lot of 'what's wrong with you is...' and not enough, 'here is my take on this topic'. It's blaming and shaming on a grand scale.

The blogsphere is still relatively small. The number of people that even know what a blog is remains a small percentage compared to other, more pervasive technologies or means of communication.

I’d like to believe that the blogging community comes to know that being read by a lot of people does not make a person right. It just means they are (for the moment) popular. We are not entitled; people don’t have to listen or agree.

Having said all of that I’m certain my little corner of readers will review my prior posts to make sure I’m not violating my own opinion.