miscellanées | blogosphère

Halte au “catblogging” !

30/10/2004. Mon informateur américain Pierre Carion m’a envoyé un article du New York Times traitant d’une nouvelle pratique révoltante : le “CatBlogging”. Que dis-je, une pratique ? Non, une épidémie.

Des blogueurs américains de renom, comme Duncan Black, alias Atrios, traitant ordinairement d’actualité et de politique, publient maintenant des photos de leur chat chaque vendredi ! Beurk.

Les chats ont envahi les blogues. Ils sont partout. Il faut que cette mièvrerie félinophile cesse !

Je dis qu’il faut organiser la résistance, un front uni de blogues sans photos de chats. La lutte ne fait que commencer.

[Cet appel a été mis à jour le 09/03/2007, car le combat est toujours d’actualité.]

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Campagne pour les blogues sans chats

Ralliez-vous à la “Campagne pour les blogues sans chats” - “Blog without a cat campaign” !

Montrez fièrement sur votre blogue le signe de votre ralliement à la cause :

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Comité de soutien :

Ils soutiennent fièrement la campagne :

• Houssein, “Hou-Hou Blog”, “Je jure qu’il n’y a jamais eu, ni aura de photos de chats sur ce blog.”
• Minh Quang, “YvoNet”, “Je ne déteste pas les chats. C’est juste que mes parents m’ont appris à ne pas jouer avec la nourriture.”
• Damien Bonvillain, “La tortue cynique”.
• “Le blog médiocre de Baboon”.
• “Le castor est irlandais”.
• “Between the Darkness and the Light”, “Ils ne passeront pas par moi !”
• “Philograph”.
• “Phersu”.
• “Sitenreveuxyenrena”.
• …

Cette campagne est sous le haut-patronage du Comité Contre les Chats (CCC).

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Connaissez vos ennemis :

Insulaires. “J’invite tous les bloggueurs possédant un chat à l’afficher avec fierté sur votre site web afin que cette campagne de dénigrement cesse !”

Samantdi.

Etolane. “Résistance à un monde sans chaleur féline. Je dis : Non à l’intolérance!”

Cossaw. “J’aime les chats, moi”

Romuald. “Ce blog est un blog 100% anti-blog sans chat.”

Jean-Yves Dupuis.

Dr. Dave.

Karl Dubost.

Jeux de Maux.

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In the vitriolic world of political Web logs, two polar extremes are Eschaton (atrios.blogspot.com), a liberal, often anti-Bush site with a passionate following, and Instapundit (www.instapundit.com), where an equally fervent readership goes for hearty praise of the Administration.

It would seem unlikely that the two blogs’ authors could see eye-to-eye about anything. Yet Eschaton’s Duncan Black (known as Atrios) and Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds have both taken part in a growing practice: turning over a blog on Friday to cat photographs.

“It brings people together,” said Kevin Drum, who began the cat spotlight last year on his own blog, Calpundit (www.calpundit.com). “Both Atrios and Instapundit have done Friday catblogging. It goes to show you can agree on at least a few things.”

Mr. Drum has moved on to write a blog for The Washington Monthly called Political Animal, which, despite its name, features no cats. But for him, watching bloggers step back from partisanship in favor of the warmth of cat pictures is a reminder of the March 2003 day when he discovered that his cats offered an antidote to stressful blogging.

“I’d just blogged a whole bunch of stuff about what was wrong with the world,” Mr. Drum said. “And I turned around and I looked out the window, and there was one of my cats, just plonked out, looking like nothing was wrong with the world at all.”

Grabbing his camera, Mr. Drum photographed his cat, Inkblot, and posted the picture (calpundit.com/archives/000597.html). He soon began doing it each Friday, attracting fans who just wanted to see the felines.

“I had a lot of people who were looking forward to it,” he said. “I started getting e-mails on Friday mornings where people were like, ’Where’s catblogging? What’s going on?’ “

As often happens in the blogosphere, other people latched onto the idea and ran with it.

These days, all kinds of bloggers are Friday catblogging, often playing around with the concept, even as Mr. Drum has stopped.

[…] To some, the point is that posting pictures of their animals provides a chance to introduce a softer personality into blogs that are often hard-edged.

“It’s just nice for bloggers to do things that show themselves as ordinary people,” Mr. Drum said, “not just partisan political writers.”

Mr. Black agreed. It’s a “way to humanize me and a way to put a little bit of me into the blog without going into my personal life,” he said.

Of course, while Mr. Black’s readers usually come to Eschaton for his takes on the political landscape, many visit on Friday to check for cats.

“It’s the one thing that readers demand that I do,” Mr. Black said. His cats “generally get positive comments,” he said, although “some people think that they’re fat.”

[The New York Times : “On Fridays, Bloggers Sometimes Retract Their Claws”.]

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Remember that: “Everytime you put a cat picture on your blog, God kills a kitten.” (And for every Bush vote, God kills a kitten too.)