A-List Bloggers: Are they regularly exploiting our inner reptile?

Kathy at Citizen’s Rent read over my earlier post on Women, Geeks, and the Blogosphere, and challenged my argument on why the female bloggers I know wouldn’t make it to the a-list (I would expect nothing less from a fellow ENTP). In response to her points, I’m concede that I incorrectly limited the argument to only applying to females. (see notes 1&2 at bottom)

This post expands upon my earlier claim that rising to the blogosphere’s a-list requires the blogger to publish content that is purposefully intended to appeal to the audience’s reptilian brain (what is the reptilian brain? think sex, survival, and digestion).Kathy, rightfully challenges my claim, “While appealing to the reptilian brain might be an easier path to a large readership, I don't think the a-listers are guilty of this. A few might be, sure, but not most.”

Admittedly, I had absolutely no evidence behind my argument. So I decided I would take a random sampling of bloggers I considered a-list. All of the headlines and leads that I sampled were the top posts at the time of the sample. This data, is of course, not scientifically valid. However, I think it will at least give us a better idea of which side the evidence points.

For kicks, I’ve decided to tally my samples like a game of tennis. If the post’s hook seems to work on the level of our survival, sex, or security related instincts, I get a point. Otherwise, Kathy gets a point. I’ll attempt to be as unbiased as possible; if anyone thinks I made a bad call, let me know.

Mega-Showdown: Lewis vs. Brant: “A-List Bloggers: “Are they exploiting our inner Reptile?” (Order on pay-per-view $49.95 ch. 114)

Round 1: From Instapundit: DARFUR UPDATE: Bill Hobbs reports on the Sudanese Ambassador's reception at Belmont University. He calls it "electric." [15-love Kathy leads]

Round 2: From Political Animal: THE LONG EMERGENCY....Over at TNR today, Christopher Hayes reviews James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.... [Score: 15-15 Tied]

Round 3: From Wonkette: Out-of-Control Judges Mostly Conservative Appointees |Those black-robed villains that James Dobson keeps getting mixed up with the Ku Klux Klan? [Score: 15-15 (no clear winner in this round)]

Round 4: FromAndrew Sullivan: "SUPER-AIDS" UPDATE:The whole idea of "super-AIDS" was a punch-line on South Park last night. Congrats to New York City's Health Department.[30-15 Nick leads]

Round 5: From Powerline: Our feckless opposition party, Part Three: Below, I criticize Senate Democrats for largely avoiding substance in opposing the nomination of John Bolton for UN ambassador…[30-30 Tied]

Round 6: From Wizbang: Feds Roundup 10,000 Fugitives: Kudos to law enforcement nationwide for making a dent last week.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 10,000 fugitives, many wanted for violent crimes, were rounded up over the past week in a coordinated nationwide effort led by U.S. marshals, law enforcement officials announced Thursday. [40-30 Nick (game point)]

Round 7: From BuzzMachine: Hear it, read it: Audible just put up a free download of Murdoch's speech here. And Ad Age finally put up Bob Garfield's media chaos piece here.

[Score: deuce] -- [Match Ends Due to Firedrill]

Lets just stop data collection with that tie, I’m not really interested in ‘winning’; and this evidence is not meant to be conclusive. However, 50 percent of the sampled posts directed towards survival – in my opinion – significantly strengthens my argument.

I think we agree that a-list bloggers know the audience is instinctively prone to reading headlines containing phrases such as, “10,000 fugitives wanted for violent crimes…” or “super-AIDS on the loose…” It’s a pretty safe bet that evolution hardwired us to find in any information relating to survival, security, or sex interesting. Why wouldn’t people take advantage of that?

It impossible to compete on the level of a-listers if you hook your readers on an intellectual level. Again, intellectual differences tend to be wildly different. I needn’t emphasize how huge of an advantage there is in going after the much more uniform instinctual levels of readers… We share those reptilian interests regardless of whether we were cave dwellers from eons ago, or living today.

I’m not necessarily judging a-listers for going after a quantity of sticky eyes; that is their job, after all. In addition, I’ll take a-listers of MSM any day. However, its impossible to squirm around the reality that successfully writing for a large audience requires limiting oneself in terms of subject matter, and in terms of depth. You have to appeal to the level that almost anyone might be on – plain and simple.

A headline that contains the words “Super-AIDS” nearly always works, because the vast majority of adult humans have an interest in not dying of AIDS, but still having sex. However, a brilliant essay by Jay Rosen doesn’t have mass appeal, because very few of us bother to think about the impact of new technology on journalism, and our collective cultural identity.

In conclusion, I have difficult seeing the bloggers that I interact with being successful in making such profound intellectual and ethnical sacrifices (but I admit that they are an exceptional bunch, and do not reflect the average blogger).

I wouldn’t disagree that many of us (including me) would love to be the next Instapundit. However, my gut tells me that desire will forever be trumped by the amount of work required, and most importantly, our intellectual curiosity.

Footnotes:
1. The original point Kathy challenged in full:

In order for a blogger to gain a mass audience, they must appeal our more vulgar, and reptilian-brained interests. Basically, the content has to be television-ized; for, as someone once pointed out, people tend to be very similar in what vulgarities they find interesting; but when it comes to their noble and enlightened interests, they tend to be wildly different. Most of the female bloggers that I know will never become a-list bloggers for the following reasons:

a. They already have jobs that pay a lot better than even the most succesful full time blogging gig.
b. Have a tendency not to compromise their integrity and morality for the sake of appealing to a mass audience.
c. Recognize that in a many-to-many medium, a high quality audience is much more rewarding, both intellectually, and emotionally, than a large mediocre one (if you don't believe me just read the comment threads at Wizbang).

2. Kathy rightly called me on inappropriately limiting those rules to females. My exact words were: “Most of the female bloggers that I know will never become a-list bloggers for the following reasons:” I concede that I was incorrect; these reasons for not making it to the a-list – if correct – will apply to males just as much as they would to females.

3. I did not follow scientific methods, and its assumed that the validity of this data rest upon my perceived integrity.