March 14, 2008

congrats, jason

So Kottke.org turns 10 today.  Huge kudos and congrats!  Jason is truly a pioneering blogger, and despite the explosion of blogs in the last few years, is doing something that is rare and remarkable: delivering a constant stream of high quality content on a wide variety of subjects – the things that matter to him.

And he’s incredibly passionate about that singular / wide-ranging focus.  If you missed it, the other day Jason posted a great piece on one of his more recent obsessions, The Wire.  (I’ve had to ignore most of what he’s been writing about The Wire, since I’m only through season three.) In response, one of his readers commented…

Believe it or not, many of your loyal readers weren’t all that interested in “The Wire” and were getting really really really sick of hearing about it.

To which Jason responded…

Please, go away. Seriously. If you’re not interested, stop reading. Go outside with a favorite book or something instead. I thought my approach to kottke.org was fairly clear after almost 10 years: I DON’T FUCKING CARE WHAT YOU DO OR DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT. I post, you read, that’s the deal. There’s no “I’d like four graphic design posts, two book reviews, and something about photography with a side of bacon, hold the mayo”. If you don’t like my filter, there are literally millions of other blogs out there to choose from.

Now, I’m probably embarrassing him a bit by calling out this comment, since Jason is one of the the nicest and most mild-mannered guys I know. But this was one of the better blog comments I’ve read recently (and I’ve been reading a lot of them), because it nutshelled exactly what I love about Kottke.org.  Jason blogs about what interests him, in his own voice, with passion and consistency.  And to do what he’s done, at the level he’s done it, for that long, is commendable.

Congrats, Jason!  Here’s to the next ten years.