Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Saturday, June 24, 2006

I Jumped the Shark But the Shark Won

Okay, RoninKengo is the first official unlawful combatant to take on the challenge of the last post with this item:

Isn't this usually the point where a blog jumps the shark?

So that's his post and now it's my turn to leave a comment:

This blog jumped back in Jauary when it split in two in a misguided attempt to generate ad revenue. Whoops. I plan on destroying the second blog with nuclear weapons. But I think you can find much better examples of blogs jumping the shark.

Rocketboom is probably the best. It committed a spectacular jump with the Katrina Hurricane Victim Dramatization video. After failing to really consider the lessons of that moment of crisis (the video is not even directly linked on their archives page), the awareness of their own growing popularity slowly crushed the simple charm seen in the earlier episodes.

Rocketboom contributor, Chuck Olsen, did a pretty stellar job of jumping the shark with the blogumentary vs. blogumentary mess. And sticking with the 'Video Killed the Blog Star theme', after cultivating the persona of a bitter cynic over a long period of time, Alex Blagg threw it all away while wearing a bad shirt in this video. Apparently, he just wanted to be a hipster all along.

Closer to home, Warren's been jumping the shark in slow motion ever since he landed that columnist gig at the National Post. Taking pot shots at Zerby and the IANA to UWAT mess is one thing, but feigning love for the National Post -- the Post! -- that's completely unbelievable. Sure, people gotta eat and there's no reason to turn down a writing gig, but that's no excuse for this:

All of the morning papers look fabulous this morning, design wise. Beautiful packages. But the Post, once again, has the nicest look of all.

Now THAT's jumping the shark.

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