David Winer, whose full-time job as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School is to track the blogging phenomenom, and is therefore as authoritative as anyone on blogosphere nomenclature, has referred to the LDS corner of the blogosphere as “the Bloggernacle.”
Times & Seasons delivers! Our own Kaimi Wenger raised the issue, Grasshopper coined the moniker 26 minutes later, and the rest is one month of history.
Perhaps blogging isn’t ineffectual anymore? Maybe bloggin will lead to GAs reading the Bloggernacle & then writing their talks?
to wit: from the discussion at the HLS site, there is a link to the following [short cite included]:
http://www.e-church.com/Resources.asp
We Know More Than Our Pastors: Why Bloggers Are the Vanguard of the Participatory Church
By Tim Bednar
This paper explores how Christians are using blogging for spiritual formation and how they are redefining the scope of Martin Luther’s “the priesthood of the believer”. Throughout the paper, I will defend my claim that “we know more than our pastors” and by the end of the paper, I will show why bloggers are the vanguard of what I am calling the “participatory church”.
Having held out for “Mo-Blog” as an alternative term, I confess I’m disappointed. It will be some time before I can bring myself to use the term Bloggernacle, which always triggers the phrase “the blogging community built without nails” in my mind.
I will at least insist that all media articles use the full name “Mormon Blogosphere” before employing the informal term “Bloggernacle.”
Dave, if we’re going to be that official when it comes to the title then we may as well call it “The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Blogosphere”
Oh and yes, this is my first post here since the ‘excommunication’ hullaboo.
Dave, if we’re going to be that official when it comes to the title then we may as well call it “The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Blogosphere”
Oh and yes, this is my first post here since the ‘excommunication’ hullaboo.
Correction, guess it was my first and second post!
I hate to toot my own horn here, but I pointed out the existence of the Bloggernacle (before it was thus named) to Jeff Sharlett of The Revealer, who then wrote about it in his daily post – the post that drew Kaimi’s attention to Mormon bloggers’ namelessness. Sharlett later discussed the impact of religious blogging at the Bloggercon conference, which served as the inspiration for the post you linked above. Sorry for the shameful self-reference, but I didn’t want to be written out of this history so soon. ;)
Great work, Brayden. We must definitely trace the precise surfacing of this word while the history is still fresh. Future etymologists will be forever grateful.
Dave, I’m with you. Everyone already thought Mormons were the corniest people around, and then we go self-label ourselves bloggernaclites.
Kudos to all involved, especially Grasshopper. From the get-go I though “bloggernacle” was a stroke of genius.
Well, as I recall, I really pushed for “Bloggernacle Choir,” but my suggestions went unheeded. I would have loved to secure a special place for myself in the eventually-to-be-written History of the Bloggernacle. But alas, my brilliant suggestion was callously discarded, and I now won’t even qualify for a footnote. As they say, history is always written by the victors. Boo-Hoo.
Aaron B
Matt, Dave,
“Everyone already thought Mormons were the corniest people around, and then we go self-label ourselves bloggernaclites.”
That’s just it–the problem with something straightforward and utilitarian like “Mo-blog” is that it fails to convey an awareness that we _ARE_ the corniest people in the world, and thus makes us appear even cornier still. “Bloggernacle” is hip and clever precisely because it is winkishly self-aware (and, not least, fun to say), while at the same time tied indelibly to and immediately evocative of our history and religious identity.
The best thing about the word “Bloggernacle” is that it led quickly to the term “bloggernacking,” and will lead (one must hope) to such delights as “bloggernackers” and “bloggernackery.”
O joy!
I prefer Bloggernacle. However, I prefer it not because it sounds better than Mo-Blog, but because it sounds like an ice cream topping or a fudgsicle brand and I am, at this present time, hungry.
Aaron, I was with you on Bloggernacle Choir, but the shorter version has grown on me. Here’s to all who were involved in the coinage (including Brayden): Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Top that for corny!
Well, we all seem to be staking our claim for prominent mention in “A Short History of the Mormon Blogosphere.” My claim to fame is coining the term “bloggernacking”:
http://timesandseasons.org/archives/000563.html#006837
In a Google search, the term “bloggernacking” now brings up three entries. But “Bloggernacle” brings up 469 results. The most interesting is a bunch of Universalist Unitarians, noting our adoption of Bloggernacle, trying of various UU blog names. If you scroll to the bottom, you’ll notice Kaimi chimes too:
http://www.philocrites.com/archives/000810.html
The #1 Google hit on “Bloggernacle”: Kaimi’s “Notes from the Bloggernacle Choir”! (http://timesandseasons.org/archives/000563.html)
Jeremy,
My impression was that Bloggernacle sans Choir was unlikely to be understood as self-parody. I have no affection for MoBlog either, and was holding out for something magical. I definitely agree with John David Payne that Bloggernacker is better than Bloggernaclite.
Bloggernaclite just sounds disgusting. Like some kind of disgusting invertebrate sea creature. Or a hemorrhoid cream. Yuck.
In the spirit of the old comedy maxim, “If it’s not funny, keep doing it until it is; if it is funny, keep doing it until it isn’t”: could we consider the bloggernacle a subset of the larger Mormon internet presence, or [wince] –Internacle–? [Author deftly dodges airborne tomatoes, etc.]
Yes, “Bloggernaclite” is gross. B-nacker has a much more lilting rhythm to it.
Bloggernaclite–isn’t that a foul-smelling Australian sandwich spread?
The bloggernacle is a subset of the Tabernet, as everyone knows.
I like b-nacking. Who put the B in the b-nack a nacle? Shooby do.
B-nack. Mad phat urban, yo.
I’m still partial to “bloggernackle choir,” since it makes more conceptual sense to me to think of each of us a member of a choir. “Bloggernackle” sounds like a building to me rather than a group of people with different voices.
that having been said, calling myself a “bloggernacker” is more colorful and funny than just calling myself a “member of the choir.”
Thom,
I definitively rebuffed your argument in the original thread. :)
Sloppy, short version of one of my rebuffals:
Blogosphere metaphors often are spacial metaphors (like ‘blogosphere,’ e.g.).
A stupid question
The blogosphere can be divided in infinite ways, but there are several identifiable and self-identifying groupings. So what do I call the Middle Eastern bloggers? Is there a name?
Good grief. (Looks around for some kind of way to notify the site admin about post 25)
Well, I couldn’t find anything, but folks, post 25 contains a link to what might be porn. I say ‘might’ only because it is so very sub-literate….
(off to run adaware and norton)
Don’t go there!
Amazin’. My computer goes to kids’ game sites and news sites and I get loaded up with spyware. I stupidly click on something that was obviously bad stuff, and get none.
I guess if you’re not smart enough to spell the names of your perversions properly, you’re too dumb to add spyware to your site….