Journalist Toby Young of The Spectator UK backed out of an opportunity to appear on Celebrity Big Brother recently. King says he decided against it because celebrity is a savage new religion that has replaced older cults.

Another salutary lesson was provided by the publication of a new biography of Lord Byron, a figure commonly regarded as the first modern celebrity. Byron became famous at the age of 24 with the appearance of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and, for the next three years, every door was open to him. He was a guest at all the great Whig houses of the period and lionised by London’s leading hostesses. Then, almost as quickly as he rose to fame, he was brought down. ‘In his sudden fall from grace Byron was a victim of the hysterical opprobrium that often succeeds extreme celebrity, a cycle wearyingly familiar to us now,’ writes Fiona MacCarthy in Byron: Life and Legend.

He also makes the case of celebrity worship being a form of religion.

More recently, a team of psychologists from Sheffield Hallam University and Southern Illinois University decided to test this hypothesis by subjecting a group of 307 British people to a battery of questions. They found that the lower a person’s religious conviction, the more likely he is to revere a particular celebrity - even, in some cases, behaving in ways he believes his hero would approve of. In an article in the influential psychology journal Personality and Individual Differences, they concluded that celebrity worship does indeed play the same role as religion in many people’s lives.

I wonder if all the singular singer-celebrity searchers that visit Bene Diction Blogs On would accept this theory?

Delinking
At the recent Yale conference on blogs, the possibility of ‘cocooning’ was brought up by featured speaker Mickey Kraus.

Kaus does think that blogs are in part the antidote to cocooning, as opposed to a contributing factor. But he thinks the web–along with talk radio–helps exacerbate the cocooning problem, without promoting dialogue.

But blogs are different: To fisk somebody, you have to know about them.

To attack somebody’s points, you have to know their arguments. And it’s also a Darwinian thing: its not in any blogger’s interest to anger any other blogger, since blogs send readers to each other all the time. So there’s a bit of self-interest in being nice to one another, and maintaining a civil dialogue (and linking, presumably). And the very phenomenon of bloggers arguing against one another–in this self-interest-motivated civil dialogue–keeps cocooning to a minimum.

Thanks to LawMeme

Within the past week there have been two brouhaha’s in the warblogger/pundit part of the blogosphere regarding ‘delinking’. Both incidents involved American blogs and both had political components to them. Little Green Footballs got attention when The Rittenhouse Review posted that they were ‘delinking’ LGF and why.
The second involves a Democrat and a Republican.

There are the subsequent copious posts about the ‘delinkings’, along with hurt feelings, strong opinions, blurred issues and polarized sides. There are real people behind every blog. Real people read them.

If you are a new blogger, a basic site policy is a safe idea. And, as seen in the second case, if you email other bloggers, why not be careful about saying anything you wouldn’t want public until you get to know them and understand their position?
It happened to me recently. Part of an email I sent wound up in a post. I got over it after a momentary

twinge of feeling a bit stupid. As wiser friends remind me often, it’s only a blog.
Blogging is not showing any signs of slowing down. People are entering and leaving the blogsosphere at a very rapid rate. Delinking happens hundreds of times a week. If you want to cocoon or holler, it’s your blog, your posts, your choice. It appears to be very important, personal, and public to a few particular bloggers.

Blog Quiz!

Yes, you have a Canadian Attitude. Is that okay?
You’re a conciliatory, wishy-washy, igloo-living, army-lacking, gun-hating,
crossborder-shopping, politeness-overdoing, American-by-Association
Take the What the Hell Kinda Attitude is That? Quiz at aka cooties.

Blog Sitting
Deciding to have a blog sitter (another blogger posting to your site while you are on haitus) was one of my better ideas. Give War a Chance recently had blog buddies take over while she was gone. It seems to be catching on, and keeps readers quite happy.

A sincere thank you to Mean/Bean/Dean Peters for his uh, unique and um, lively posts and er, significant presence while I was away. Merci.
Now Peters, listen up; I know you do techy stuff at Heal Your Church Website, and I know you run blogs4God.com with military precision and I know you fix every one else’s web problems in between a real job, a lively family, busy church work, and other community responsibilities…..but buddy, given what you accomplished here at Bene Diction Blogs On while I was away, don’t you think it’s time you got yourself a real blog?

What do the rest of you think?
Please take a second and drop him some encouragement and thanks in my comments section. I’d be delighted to ensure that he gets every single one of them!

Perception is Everything
Another point brought up at the Yale Revenge of the Blogs conference was blogging as addiction. I agree. For the vast majority of us it is a healthy hobby. Once you get your blogging legs under you, you might want to consider hiring someone to re-arrange things. Thank you cre8d.

What an absolute pleasure it was to work with Rachel Cunliffe of cre8d-design. Not only is Bene Diction Blogs On now looking like I want it too,

the process was painless, considerate, client-oriented, economically realistic and quite fun. BeneBobby when the tweaking is done. I have some new toys. And at last, it feels like home.