The Tipping Point

November 24, 2004

There is a cancer — warm and angry — metastasizing in the belly of the blogosphere. It grows, thrives, fed by the deluded, the self-satisfied, the people who use the word “blogosphere.”

I speak, of course, of the “hat tip.”

At some point in the past, a blogger managed to correctly spell “attribution,” and looked it up in the dictionary during a leftward swing of the blogging-is-journalism/jouralism-is-corrupt pendulum. Of course! What blogging needs to legitimize itself isn’t professional standards or a tradition of public service and betterment. What blogging needs is a way to publicly masturbate my friends!

Attribution, like cat pictures, takes many forms. An innocuous “via” or “from,” standing alone, quietly offers credit to the source of a bit of information. A reference to a nickname — “From Mickey” — introduces a self-satisfied familiarity that adds nothing to the attribution but tells the world that you an Kaus are best buds. An adjective — “From the terrific Instapundit” — is embarrassing obsequiousness, while an adjective with a modifier on a nickname — “From the always excellent Sully” — Jesus. Why not just drop by and give him a blow-job, why don’t you? It’s my understanding that he’d accept.

Each of these forms spirals further away from the purpose of attribution and deeper into other, darker motives. Rather than acknowledge the footwork required to dig up a piece of information or let the reader evaluate its source, these more elaborate forms are intended to imply something about the attributor: they know someone, they like someone, they’re in with the in-crowd. Attribution becomes just another few drops in the endless ocean of self-satisfaction and masturbatory self-involvement that is blogging.

Which, down here at the bottom of the barrel, brings us to the “hat tip.”

With those two words, a blogger says to the world that not only is he bestest buddies with whoever he’s linking to, but, why, he’s jaunty! He’s fun! He tips his hat, see, probably a fedora! Nothing rounds out a bilious screed of contempt and loathing like a little jaunty hat tipping! That wasn’t two thousand words driven by hatred — how could it be? I tipped my hat! It’s manly, but polite, just like me!

I’m guessing that the world will never see “Curtsey: LGF.”

Could there be a more transparent method of building a self-image with a piece of information that has nothing to do with self-image? It’s baggage that completely undermines the journalistic purpose of attribution. It — like almost everything else in the faux-journalism that some portion of blogging is attempting to become — manages to both degrade and infantalize the standard it’s supposed to emulate. The New York Times did not conclude the Pentagon Papers story with, “Hat tip: WaPo.”

But you’d expect that from those corrupt “journalists” at the Times, wouldn’t you? Who’d want to emulate them? To emulate “journalism”? You’ll pry my jaunty tipping hat from my cold, dead fingers!

And so the pendulum swings again.

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Bill added:

I agree that the phrase “hat tip” is silly. Does anyone still wear a hat?*

But attribution has been part of blog culture since the outset, and ultimately that’s a good thing, no matter how obsequiously it may be expressed. Would it be better if everyone just stole links and never attributed where they were found?

*Obligatory show tune reference, sorry. I’ll drink to that.

Posted on November 24, 2004 9:39 AM

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geekgurl added:

Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Gobble, gobble.

Posted on November 25, 2004 9:08 PM

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Alex Stapleton added:

Of course this sort of self-mastabatory activity has existed for ever. And the craze for making things quirky and “unique” is a product of everything modern. Just look at the TV adverts for companies such as eBay or Cahoot or egg. The online banks are probably the best example, financial instiutions are *supposed* to be conservative and professional. But professionalism and conservation is hardly what people wany anymore, so perhaps it’s just about time the world moved on and realised that interpretation is 9/10ths of the law. By that I mean that just because it says “Hat tip” or “Via” instead of something more traditional doesn’t mean its basically the same thing.

It seems to me what you really have a problem with is the overwhelming supply of pointless quirkyness and the sheer desperation of the western public to set themselves apart from the crowd, yet to attain celebrity at the same time. I’m not sure yet if its good or bad, but I mostly expect that it doesn’t matter at all.

Please respond.

Posted on November 26, 2004 1:38 AM

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Alena added:

I’m not sure how to feel about your post. I’m a hyper-conscientious person and will always credit my sources.. anything resembling ‘hat-tipping’ on my part comes from the fact that I generally can’t help endorsing things I enjoy. If I give props to someone for their site, it’s out of admiration and wanting to pass on something good to my readers.

I’m not looking for a back pat, and while I might use first names in my citations, I don’t assume a non-existent familiarity. I don’t know why crediting the site author by name is worse than citing the title, especially when many bloggers choose not to reveal full names.

In addition, it has been my observation that there is a tradition in the blogosphere of quoting the individual rather than the site. I’ve always taken this as a facet of blogging, the sense of community and familiarity with other bloggers.

I agree that ‘hat-tipping’ with self-serving motives is lame, but I personally haven’t noticed a lot of it. Maybe we’re reading different sites. :)

Posted on November 27, 2004 7:36 PM

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