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Clearly there is something wrong with me. I became obsessed with discovering who the "a-list" is. I'm sure this is very old hat for most of you, so feel free to skip this post, since it has nothing to do with IA and everything to do with bizarre web subcultures. However, if you --like me-- rather enjoy bizarre web subcultures, hop on.
It all started with the ALA article on flaming the famous, which caused me to become obsessed with figuring out who the maligned four were.
"four writer-designers received praise for pioneering the personal storytelling site"
"the four had somehow "sold out.""
"Two of the four were so distressed by these accusations that they drastically curtailed their creative output"
Tease! So I read the forum in search of the four. That led me to Metafilter (I'd visited it before, but never gotten involved). MeFi led me to Shuffleboard where I briefly became a guru-groupie and flirted with jakob neilson (kinkier than becoming a furry).
I wandered back to MeFi where they had given me four names. I did a seach on "derek" and "powazek" hoping to track down the war that started it all. I finally did find it (or one of the wars, anyhow) on metatalk by searching on "webby" and following a link.
It was a pretty funny "flamewar"-- the worst the thread had to offer was a suggestion that {fray} was past it's prime (along the line of saying it's "so five minutes ago" and patently untrue). I did enjoy meg saying her grandmother was past her prime and she still loved her... woo, I thought I had a penchant for puttting my foot in my mouth. I never did find the insulted other three, but by that time I no longer cared.
Having now surfed MeFi and MeTa so much, I was amazed how often people referred to this "a-list" as if it were something written up somewhere. I did a quick search on it, and found no originating thread or official list. Shuffleboard soon convinced me that the a-list was a group hallucination held by heavy bloggers.
I was pleased to find metatalk, but almost immediately insulted matt (see comment regarding foot above). Sigh.
Continuing my inane streak. Woo hoo! No wiser, and never did figure out who the a-list consists of beyond meg, ev, cam(maybe), matt, powazek and kottke. But deeply amused trying so very hard to unravel something "everybody" knows.
Also, I've notice on MeFi that any frontpage topic started on any of these A-listers usually generates more comments than say a topic on a new drug that cures cancer. It's kicky fun for all.
J
put down the helium, christina.
(I'm on the Y-list. That's for people who don't know Y anyone cares about this stuff. I would be on the Z-list, but Zeldman got there first.... :-)
Yes. It seems they got bored with it very quickly...
who's alex?
btw, the "alex" you asked about is Alex Massie, of www.alexmassie.com.
Christina - not everyone knows who they are. I read the ALA posting and was wondering if this infighting on the list was about the IA list because I had read it right after our flame war broke out between you and modern - so that shows you how self centered I am.