facebook killed the blogging community

in halifax like video killed the radio star.

i'm not being cheeky. well, not... a lot. chances are, if you weren't sleeping under a rock some four or five years ago, you were at the very least aware that blogging was a bit of a local phenomenon.

feels so long ago, somehow. certainly, a lot of the key characters that made up that 'scene' still blog, somewhere out in the ether. but many have moved away and the community feel is not there anymore - you can't go to a party, say, and read extensive internet coverage on it the next day the way you used to. the social environments that used to be a convergence point for halifax bloggers have fragmented: bands that are defunct, bars that have changed or gone under - all these undercurrent elements that seemed to sustain it are gone. nothing stays the same, although around here we love saying that it does, probably to avoid being personally responsible for our apathy.

it was mostly philip's doing, of course. i'd like to know how many people threw themselves into self-publishing solely as a result of his influence - by association or otherwise. many more, including yours truly, completely owe their five minutes of blogging fame to being linked to by him at the height of halifax blogmania. here's the outline: everyone who was connected to local music, art and/or alternative performance was reading halifaxlocals. with me so far? everyone reading halifaxlocals was reading philip, and everyone who was reading philip was reading everyone philip was reading, and there you have it: the rise of an empire from a grain of sand.

it's not that we were all friends or even knew each other, except for the occasional "sighting" at any given downtown event. i'd been reading mood surgery for well over a year before i realized that eben was my downstairs neighbour. we then proceeded to spend the summer of whatever-year-this-was drinking beer on our creighton street stoop until the sun was up, amicably arguing about music - it was one of few friendships i made on the internet that effortlessly bled into real life. but the following year, i moved out of that apartment, months later i quit blogging, and after that the world was suddenly awash with a facebook pandemic that effectively wiped out all other forms of online communication (and many offline ones, as well).

am i bitter about the demise of our little self-indulgent blogging circle? not so much - there is a freedom in not reading three acccounts of the same stupid party all the who's whos went to, as well. mostly, i was disappointed that i wasn't writing anymore, but here's a shortlist of things i did miss about it: keeping in touch with people like eben, engaging in verbal banter and debate in a non-social setting, and being able to glimpse into somebody - virtual strangers, even - on a level you never do from reading a facebook status line.

hmm. may be a little bit of a double standard, that. because a couple of nights ago, i put my status on a whim to "needs a whip, got one?" (i really did need one, if you're wondering - the whim was to broadcast it on the internet) and minutes later, eben replied that he could be over and drop one off within the hour. we ended up hanging out for a good three, catching up on years of unblogged-about life stuff, and spawned the conversation that spawned this post.

but yes, we also argued about music. amicably. life goes on, and i promise i'm done with all the self-referential blogging about blogging now... in fact, if you even see me type that word again, you have my full permission to un-friend me. on facebook.