Metroblogging is a cult

Atlanta Metblogs is anyway. I don't know about the other thousand and one cities out there with a local blog site. I joined Metroblogging Atlanta several months ago with the best of intentions. I wanted to write for a wider audience. I wanted a place to post with other local bloggers. Oh, what the hell. I'll say it. I just wanted to direct more traffic to my own site with minimal effort.

When Blackgayblogger, one of Atlanta's most sardonic and skilled blog writers, left the Atlanta MetBlogs site to go write for 9rules, that should have been a clue for me that the former was but a subpar venue for my infinite and humble wisdom. Being the attention whore that I am though I jumped at the chance to write for a more heavily trafficked site. Little did I know what was in store.

For starters, atlanta metblogs (I've just decided they no longer merit capitalization in my book) requests that contributers post three times a week, a rather hefty goal seeing as how they also ask that you not simply copy and paste something from your own blog. As it turns out the three-posts-a-week rule is only vaguely monitored by an automaton post bot who sends you a gentle reminder that you haven't posted in some time if in fact you haven't. After I got the first one, I had future reminders go direct to my junk mail.

What irritated me most about it though were the slew of listserve emails I started getting whenever one of the cult leaders would send out a group email requesting filler material. I'm sure to be blacklisted after writing this because a footer at the bottom of every email sent through the site requests that "like Vegas, what happens in metblogs stays in metblogs." Whatever! Why they think their shit is worth my confidentiality is beyond me. For the most part, their ad nauseum emails are slightly less poignant than this:

Cult Leader: Anyone wanna write about traffic in the A-T-L?
Cult Follower 1: Ooh, I will. I love traffic and I love writing about it. LOL.
Cult Follower 2: Great, Cult Follower 1, you might want to include the names of some major expressways in your post. Just an idea.
Cult Follower 1: Gee, thanks, Cult Follower 2. I'll do that. I love I-85 and I live inside the perimeter so that makes me superior and more knowledgable than most.
Cult Follower 3: Wait a minute. I haven't written anything in a while. How 'bout if I write on traffic too?
Cult Leader: Well, we've already got someone writing about taffic. Maybe you can write about the high occupancy lanes? Sound good?
Cult Follower 3: Thanks again, Cult Leader. I'm glad you're here to guide us and tell us all that is good about you and the site.
Cult Follower 2: Ditto that. LOL. Just want you all to know I love all you guys.
Cult Follwer 1: Word!

It goes on from there but I'll spare you the mindless details. Did I mention that a similar exchange like the one above might litter my inbox for days at a time as it slowly aggrandizes and then fizzles out? The saddest part is that when the aforementioned cult follower does go on to write about Atlanta traffic or whatever other blase topic has been handed out to him, the post will often read like a fifth-grade writing sample.

Don't get me wrong. There are some good writers on the site, but somehow when people write on shit they couldn't care less about, their writing sucks. It's as though they're just doing it to meet their ambitious quota or worse yet, please the leader.

Leader by the way is not my word; it's theirs. The metblog guru (who incidentally somehow warrants his own Wikipedia entry) is often referred to in the emails as "our leader." The people in charge of the various cities' blogs are called the captains. Again, whatever! I have enough going on in my blog life that I don't need to worry about answering to blog middle management, much less whether my writing and the pictures I attach to it meet their pisspoor pedantic guidelines.

Also get this. When a new site is started for yet another metroblogging city, we are all encouraged to pop over to the new site and say hello like it's some big love bomb festival or something. Somehow the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is behind all this. I just hope those remaining metbloggers don't taunt my family with spam as some sort of retribution for me leaving the group.

I've recently started reading Extraneous Kickassery who, after joining the group indie blogs, readily and jokingly admitted that he joined a cult. He also claims to be "making the internet a dumber place since 2006." I like people who put it to you straight. Not to mention the fact that his shit is funny. Maybe it's just 'cause I have some compunction for humorous smartasses who can swill hard liquor and down all-beef Koshers for hours at a time. OK, he never really said that, but read some of his stuff and you'll get the idea. Anyway, I'm not the only person out there who recognizes the blog cults out there.

Blog Antagonist used to use her blog postings to point out stupid things about blogging, and in fact she calls her blog Blogs are Stupid. She since has seen the light or been blog-saved or was struck blind but then could see and changed her name from Saul to Paul or something like that, but anyway I do wonder what she would say about these blog cults.

I'm not anti-cult necessarily. I just am not big on any cult that doesn't have me as its leader. People, I am the way.

Me.

Kevin. Of cocktailswithkevin.com.

Beware the leaven of these blog Pharisees.

I'm just saying, ya'll.