New rule

I'm usually not one to throw around ultimatums, but here's a new personal rule: If you use the term "MSM" in a unironic way to denote the "Mainstream Media" I will write you off as a quack, unsubscribe from your RSS, and stop reading your blog.

There is no "mainstream" media that is well-defined as Them, nor are webloggers suddenly Us. The term "The Media" is so nebulous that it includes us all. The line between the imagined "Us" bloggers and "Them" media outlets is so gray that it can't be drawn. Media outlets in all forms are absorbing blog format, subjects, and culture and blogs of all forms are absorbing media outlets' format, subjects, and culture at a speed so swift it will soon be difficult to tell one from the other, if it hasn't happened already.

You are the media. I am the media. Blogs are a fixture in the mainstream. So when you decry the "MSM" as an imaginary villain, I know I'm done with your site.

It used to be pretty easy to avoid mentions of "MSM" as only a narrow swath of blogs used the term but more and more I keep seeing it show up on the pages of technologists that should be able to see the big picture instead of propping up strawmen to slay on their sites.

Still not with me?

We are the media:

Stories about blogs abound daily:

And we make up TV shows:

Even dorks like me:

So get over yourself and drop the "MSM" bullshit, please.

update: an update, for those new to this site.