Yes, it's true. I think most older folk aren't "with it" when it comes to matters of trends and technology. Blame it on my parents being computer illiterate and referring to that rapper as "that Thirty cents" guy.
When David Carr, the renowned New York Times media columnist and blogger, walked into our classroom, I prepared myself for a lecture from a hard-line, old-school journalist. Maybe I was subconsciously influenced by Gawker editor Jessica Coen referring to Mr. Carr's The Carpetbagger blog as "careful blogging" during her visit to our class. Hell, maybe it was because the guy looked like he was in his 40s, and I (like most twentysomethings) was guilty of being a just a little bit discriminatory towards my elders.
Basically, I thought I was going to get a long, scholarly diatribe about blogging by someone who didn't even "get" it.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Mr. Carr's attitude towards blogging was (surprise, surprise) much like my own. He reads blogs, his blog is "voice-driven" (unlike the sterile, "professional" blog that I was expecting), and he loves writing 400-word discourses just because he can. Plus, the guy's got a sense of humor that's much more sardonic than mine, even at my most antagonistic. Imagine my shock when he mentioned that he gets his music news from Pitchfork.
He's more than willing to embrace and adapt to this new technology. Dare I say that he's even better at blogging than most of us?
Although his Carpetbagger movie awards season blog is supposed to go dark after the Oscars, he said that he might consider continuing to blog for the Times as an add-on to his regular media column. He told us that blogging has taught him spontaneity and gave him more confidence with his writing.
As the first blogger at the Times, Mr. Carr admitted that he could have been regarded as "kind of the dad in the basement at the teen party." But he pleasantly shocked me out of thinking that every person over 35 doesn’t get blogging. The whole discussion served as a reminder that blogging is something that's by the people and for the people -- even if they are old enough to remember Woodstock. You just have to be willing to learn, a quality that's not at all age-specific.
Andrew Nusca @ Tue, 02/28/2006 - 7:34pm
It's true - Carr's demeanor certainly didn't match his image. The man clearly wasn't terribly comfy with the "blogger" title, but that doesn't prevent him from putting any less into what he does.
After all, Anderson Cooper he's not.