A sad fact of blogging life is that so many of us are anonymous. We have to be, because everyone that's not an A-lister is, let's be honest, anonymous.
So I have been doing exhaustive research on the subject, and have discovered that all bloggers are NOT born as A-Listers, in fact, most start out anonymously! They will later bloom into A-Listers that command respect, and enjoy the luxury of ignoring every one of their anonymous blogging pals that they stepped on while climbing the blogging ladder!
But how does one go from anonymous to A-Lister, I hear you cry....fear not true-believers, I have created a step-by-step process!
Let's take our anonymous hero.....we'll call him Drew McLoud.
Drew starts out with his anonymous blog(we'll call it 'Macro-Delusion'), with his paltry zero links. Oh Drew starts out fighting the good fight....posting every day, as much as possible, waiting for the blogging deities to come and reward his efforts on MD with heapings of links.
It never happens.
Finally, Drew has an epiphany: Attempting to win links based on content isn't working, so Drew decides to try kissing up!
So Drew makes a list of 10 or so A-Listers, and begins to link to each of them, daily.
After a few weeks of this, finally one of them links BACK to Drew! And the great thing about A-Listers is, if one links to you, the others feel like they then HAVE to link to you as well, or else they won't be an A-Lister anymore! (I don't understand this part, but then again I don't understand why I can tell my non-bloggy friends about 'what Doc Searls posted yesterday about the conversation economy was brilliant', and they always respond with 'who the blue hell is Doc Searls?'. Sheesh..they really need to get a life.)
Drew then comes off the link-love high a few days later, after the traffic starts to die. That's when the NEXT phase of the plan to become an A-Lister comes into play!
All A-Listers HAVE to go to as many conferences as possible (I think they lose their A-Lister card if they don't). So what Drew does is decide to start stalkin.....er......ATTENDING the same conferences that these A-Listers do!
So Drew, at great monetary expense, begins attending as many conferences as possible. He tries to fight through the crowds to talk to his favorite A-Listers, and after a few trips he gets a quick hand-shake in with a couple of them!
Then, Drew runs back to Macro Delusion, and IMMEDIATELY blogs about 'how great it was to finally meet 'insert favorite A-Lister HERE'.
Drew does this, because whenever an A-Lister attends a conference, they are required to repost EXPLICIT details of the event, including listing EVERY blogger that they come in contact with. Finally, one A-Lister admits that, 'And it was great to meet Drew McLoud'.
Bingo! Drew is so close to being an A-Lister, he can smell it! Because when the FIRST A-Lister acknowledges meeting Drew, every other A-Lister immediately becomes nervous, thinking 'HEY! Who's this Drew McLoud guy?!? I've never heard of him! Oh crap....what if he's NOW an A-Lister, and no one told me?!? Does that mean *I* am no longer an A-Lister?!?'.
So immediately, every A-Lister posts about 'how great it was to meet Drew McLoud!'. Drew is so overjoyed, he can't bear to correct them!
The cycle is complete, and our hero has now gone from zero, to bonafide A-Lister!
At the next conference, one of the A-Listers that never met Drew (but claimed she did), pulls aside another A-Lister (who also never met Drew, but claimed he did), and she asks her pal 'Say....who exactly IS this Drew McLoud?!?'.
At this point, the second A-Lister is afraid the other A-Lister might be testing him, so he replies 'Why you know who Drew is.....Drew's an A-LISTER!'.
The End.
This is SO funny! The problem is, I can't share it because I dont know anyone who would understand what you're talking about at all.
Posted by: Miss Cellania | June 25, 2006 at 07:29 AM
"Macro-Delusion," was that a little sarcastic jab at old Steve?
Posted by: Justin Hunt | June 07, 2006 at 05:36 PM
I am in full and blatantly self-promoting agreement about this here post. Whatever it was.
Posted by: Todd | June 05, 2006 at 10:31 PM
You know, this post wouldn't hurt so much if I hadn't JUST stepped in the door from a convention.
Fortunately, I was the only blogger there that I know of, and the people I was networking with were from piddly publications like TV Guide and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Oh...wait......
Well, ok, so now that I've sang on-air on national television with a former American Idol, can I be an A-lister???
Posted by: J.D. Matthews | June 05, 2006 at 02:10 AM
Oh shit. I've been found out.
Posted by: David Armano | June 02, 2006 at 04:15 PM