It seems like everyone knows a blogger these days. Many people are bloggers. It’s like being part of a secret club that anyone can join. All they need are computers and opinions.
I’ve been around this blogging thing for a long time, almost as long as John Scalzi has. I can recall with some amusement when newspapers, magazines and “real” journalists and writers laughed at us. Many of them treated us like we were a bunch of amateurs playing with the latest passing fad.
I can recall with a great deal of amusement when these horrified “real” journalists realized that the blog-o-sphere (a term we all hate but continue to use, because nobody has come up with anything to replace it) was not only here to stay, but was forcing them to join us or perish.
I can recall with supreme amusement when they finally did join us, and then started whining that we didn’t play by their rules. We were raw, we gave things away (for free! as in beer and speech, thank you very much), we spoke truth to power, we were outspoken and impolite. There were regular calls by these established media personalities and companies for panels on blogger ethics. Sales of clutching pearls, smelling salts and fainting couches skyrocketed.
Eventually, the old guard got over themselves and accepted that we weren’t going anywhere. These days, blogs and bloggers are squarely in the mainstream. Every news outlet in the world has several blogs. Bloggers regularly sit beside credentialed journalists at press conferences (and often ask better questions). When Scooter Libby was finally put on trial in 2007 for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame in 2003, the most comprehensive coverage came from a group of bloggers who were covering the story from inside the courtroom. Countless writers—including the author of this book—have subverted the traditional publishing process and released entire novels on their blogs. An entire generation is growing up in a world where blogs have always existed and are just as relevant to them as magazines and newspapers were to their parents. The Internet, originally designed to facilitate the easy sharing of information (not porn, as it’s turned out—not that I’m complaining), has finally realized that intention. Blogs and bloggers are here to stay, until they unplug the Internet and turn out the lights on planet Earth.
So what you’re holding here is more than an entertaining collection of essays, stories and insights about everything from parenting to politics to publishing. You have a piece of Internet history, and it is your solemn duty to preserve it for the ages. Oh, sure, you can read it. You can even read it twice, if you want. You can probably share it with your friends and family (I’m sure John and everyone at Subterranean would prefer you bought them their own copy, but I won’t tell on you if you don’t) but when you’re all finished, it should really be placed in a climate-controlled nitrogen-filled museum display, or at least watched over by top men, because John is an OG blogger, and Whatever is an OG blog. The Internet is serious business, people, and you’d be wise to remember that, or I’ll throw you off my digital lawn and Skype your parents.
Some of you may know John as the award-winning author of novels such as Old Man’s War. Others among your number may know John as the guy who wrote The Rough Guides to Science Fiction and Space. But I’m willing to bet the cost of this book that most of you know John as the guy who taped bacon to his cat and put a picture of it on his blog.
I know John as all of these things, plus a few more that shouldn’t be disclosed…but certainly merit a mention in passing, if only to inflate the myth behind the man and impress you with my implied proximity to his greatness.
Regardless of how you came to know John and his work, though, you don’t really know him unless you’ve read his blog. That is where this book comes in.
John is one of a handful of people who have been blogging since the beginning. This is an impressive feat all by itself, but what’s truly remarkable is how consistently entertaining and readable he’s been for the last decade. I’ve been blogging since 2000, and I’ve been a more-or-less full-time writer since 2004, so I know how hard it can be to populate a blog with consistently worthwhile entries for a few weeks at a time, let alone a decade.
I started reading Whatever about three years ago, because our mutual friend Mykal kept telling me about something funny or insightful his friend John had posted. It’s been a daily stop for me ever since. It’s been hugely entertaining to come across some of my favorite entries in this book. (I especially like the posts where John shares practical advice for guys like me who hope to achieve some small portion of the success John’s made for himself, with Fred the Cult Leader and Super Gay Happy Fun Hour! coming in tied for second.)
If this is your first time reading John’s blog, however, you should know a couple of things before you read any further, lest it all end in tears.
John ignores the oft-given advice to avoid discussions of parenting, religion and politics, and posts about these topics frequently. Unlike most who tackle these topics, John addresses them intelligently, with great humor and insight. However, if you’re very sensitive or easily offended, John’s going to mock you as he skins and barbecues a barn’s worth of sacred cows. I speak from experience on this point. John once wrote about one of my most beloved movies of all time, thusly: “Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot.” My natural geek instinct was to grab a pitchfork and convert a slide rule to a torch, but before I could summon my fellow outraged Jedi (or find a slide rule), I read the rest of John’s post. Goddammit if he didn’t make a lot of sense. Sure, it helped that John hated the prequels as much as I did, but his larger point about what Star Wars really is, versus what a lot of us want it to be, was made with humor and logic, and I eventually put my lightsaber away. I don’t know if fundamentalist Christians (John calls them “Leviticans”) or asshole parents are as easily mollified, so you should absolutely track one down, give the poor devil a copy of this book and grab some popcorn.
I’m close to my maximum word count (we bloggers struggle with this limitation when we write things that will be printed on dead trees; we’re just not used to having space-based limitations) so let me get to the bit that I hope will be quoted on the jacket: This book captures everything I love about blogging. This book is filled with awesome. In the vernacular of the damn kids today, this book is made of EPIC WIN. John is funny, John is sarcastic, John is thoughtful, John is insightful, John is provocative…in other words, John is John, and I hope he never stops writing about and within Whatever.
Finally, I would like to note, with glee, that most of this introduction was written on a laptop while in a coffee shop. Contrary to what John says, I’m pretty sure I fooled at least one person.
Wil Wheaton
actor, author, blogger
Los Angeles, CA