Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Blogealogy

Pablo of Round Rock Journal is just about the best blog friend you could ever hope for. Recently he gave me a "Thinking Blogger Award", which I was very grateful to receive. It was especially nice considering that I'm not usually likely to be found, say, debating politics, or pondering existentialism or the like.

I have a hard enough time following regular memes the way I'm supposed to, without smartypantsness getting in the way. And I really wondered about the oddly restrictive rules for this one.

The "rules" are:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.
2. Link to (the original post) so people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

I didn't actually link to the post you're supposed to. Because I suspect that so people can easily find the exact origin of the meme really means so I can get lots and lots of links.

The blogealogy went backwards like this. The date on the entry is written after the blog's name, and they're American-style dates so 4.8 is April 8th, not 4th August.

me
Round Rock Journal 4.8
Arboreality 4.7
Classical Bookworm 3.12
A Work in Progress 3.10
Pages Turned 3.9
Mental Multivitimin 3.9
The Sheila Variations 3.9
Put on Your Big Girl Panties 3.9
One Weird Mother 2.25
Oh, the Joys 2.25
It's Really Me 2.24
Frog and Toad are Still Friends 2.23
Under the Mad Hat 2.22
Bub and Pie 2.22
So Fast Away 2.20
Life: The Ongoing Education 2.18
California Teacher Guy 2.18
History is Elementary 2.16
Another History Blog 2.13
Primordial Blog 2.12
Sandwalk 2.12
Greg Laden 2.11
The Thinking Blog 2.11

OK, so assuming that this timeline is representative, if all had worked as plotted -- if everyone obeyed the rules and nobody got nominated more than once -- the originator would now have roughly 11,920,928,955,078,100 links.

That didn't happen, of course, but depending on which source you believe, that idea did garner somewhere between 1,000 and 162,000 links.

Pretty good thinking.

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Now, whether you're tempted to say, "Hey I've got to get me some of that. What kind of award can I dream up?" or "Help, help, I'm being manipulated," do click on some of the links above. After just a couple I found blogs that I not only hadn't heard of, but who didn't even link to anyone I'd heard of. And some of them are quite wonderful!

So, to sum up:
Nice results from possibly scammy origins. How often does that happen?!

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Since I never leave a meme as I found it, I'm going to list five blogs for you to check out that I've never linked before. They can accept the "Thinking Blogger Award" or not, as they choose, and don't have to follow no stinkin' rules. Unless they want to.

Snow Crumbs
Omniglot
House of Lime
French Word-a-Day

Oh heck. This was so funny that I'm going to link it even though she's already listed in my sidebar. I offer you The Chicken Story. Cackle at will.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Howdy! Thanks for the link, the recalcitrance, and the nice long list of blogs in the "genealogy" for us to play with!

karrie said...

Hello! I considered the scam angle as well, but like you really enjoyed clicking around. I also like passing on links and awards--helps make sure that more voices are heard. Now I'm off to poke around here a bit.

Anonymous said...

How can I be so naive and still function in day-to-day life?

pablo
www.roundrockjournal.com

Rurality said...

Unlike me you are a very nice person! :) I hope you are not mad at me for my smartypants ways.

But like I said, the possibly scammy original idea actually produced some really nice results for other people too.

Bea said...

I've seen lots of memes go around, but this is the first one that has sparked so many people to trace the rabbit all the way back up the hole. Is it because of our thinky ways, we thinking bloggers? Or is it the bossy instructions that keep sparking people to follow the links back to their origin?

Lara said...

nice job with the blogeology! how many of those blogs did you visit? that's serious dedication. ;)

Rurality said...

BubandPie, I should have realized I wasn't the only one with this idea. Part of the appeal is probably the chance to use exponentials in everyday life. ;)

Lara, every one of them! That was the fun part. I was surprised that there were so many really good blogs that I hadn't read before. The problem is that nowdays it's impossible to keep up with them all.

By the way, 5^23 really is 11,920,928,955,078,100 -- I didn't just make that up!

lime said...

well i am honored, especially sionce, to my knowledge, you are kind of a new comer to my little corner of the blogosphere.

i like that you don't follow rules well, hehehe. i don't either.

oh and the chicken story? HILARIUOS!!!!!

KFarmer said...

I laughed so hard, I thought I would loose my coffee! Thanks for the funny, I'll have to check her blog more often :)

meresy_g said...

thanks for thinking I'm funny. And I definitely agree that you are a Thinking Blogger and deserve an award. I love that you think about place and all the things that are going on there that most people never stop to notice. And I always learn something.

robin andrea said...

Such an interesting analysis of the thinking meme. It didn't occur to me to actually create a blogealogy of the meme. I love that you did.

Great chicken story over at Edge Effect. Definitely made me laugh out loud.

Trailhead said...

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for that chicken story.

kris said...

Thanks for all the great links to check out! I like your blog - I'll be visiting again.

R.Powers said...

I thought it to be the same, but did not take your steps to track it down.
Bravo!

James Cooper said...

I've been absolutely no good at these blog-meme things. Luckily my atypical blog formats have prevented me from getting involved very many, but I did also get the Thinking Blog award courtesy of Suldog. Unfortunately I still haven't gotten around to doing anything about it.

Maybe I'll pass it on when things slow down a bit...

Omelay said...

if you have the patience and go back through my blog you'd find pablo there encouraging me and making wonderfully supportive comments. pablo is probably the sole reason that i blog today--not the reason that i started but the main reason i kept going. kudos to pablo

Rachel said...

LOL at the chicken story!! That poor man probably tells that tale to family and friends about the "strange lady wanting lubricant for a chicken!!"

autumn said...

Hi! Thank you for including my blog! I really am fighting academia for my own sanity, so I'll take my "Thinking Blogger" award with pride, even if it is scammy, becuase what the heck, it's better than a "B" in poetry. Love the Blogealogy list!

L said...

This is hilarious.
Yes it's a scam of sorts but people like it, it really does seem to promote quality (if I do say so myself) and it has me reading blogs I've never seen before. Like yours. Plus, my husband bought me ice cream when I got my Thinking Blogger Award as a way to celebrate. Mmmm...ice cream.

Rurality said...

Lime, yes I did find you just recently, through KF. I'd seen your comments on her blog a lot but just recently clicked through.

KF, lots of good garden pics there too!

Thanks Meredith! The Chicken Story is one of my favorite blog posts ever!

RA, it only lacks a spew alert! :)

Trailhead, my pleasure!

Thanks Kris!

FC I think I'm just more ornery than you are. :)

JC it was fun to trace it back. There were more steps than I'd imagined in such a short time.

Karl, he is a wonderfully supportive guy.

Rachel, yeah I'd love to read his blog too LOL.

Autumn, though I found you just recently I feel like I've gotten in on the ground floor of something brilliant. :)

Bethgo, yep I think so too. Hey I didn't get any ice cream! After reading that I made myself a Margarita though!