This post is a response to Kenny Meyers' recent post, Making Friends. Read that, or you won't get this.
Recently, Making Friends has found its way into my Twitter stream umpteen times. In it, Kenny Meyers essentially makes the following argument: all of our superheroes have grown fat, old, and moderately decrepit, but we’re still insistent on lauding them and throwing flowers at their feet as they give 400 talks a year and switch from writing code to writing checks.
And it’s a point that’s rattled in my head on more than one occasion. As I sit through another 17 vapid masturbatory praise-retweets from someone I do consider or have considered a hero, I wonder why I still even keep up with them. Then I stop.
I think what he’s lamenting is just the way of life. The revolutionaries become the government, and a new generation finds their flaws and starts a new revolution. The old guard changes. That’s OK. Just because Jeffrey Zeldman and Jason Santa Maria aren’t saying things that are interesting to him doesn’t mean the community is on the brink of collapsing.
When Happy Cog unveiled their $800 a month hosting of LAMP-only stacks, Jeff Croft (on his Twitter account, which is private) made some interesting points about the complex needs of modern web applications. As did he when he perceived many people who are “Internet famous” prescribing responsive web design as a cure-all. He’s been a great example of having well-formed, contrary opinions.
Kenny says this in his piece:
We’ve psuedo-elected a representative body of like-minded people. When the IFs do disagree it’s over some trite bullshit like the HTML5 brand. They all chew and spit the same dogma. It’s not difficult to agree with platitudes.
Many people call that a community, but I call it a collaboration of fools. Where are the fire-starters? Why are we reading direction-less ships like Cognition? Does Andy Clarke really come up with compelling speeches 175 times a year? When was the last time you stopped and thought, “Wow. Jason Santa Maria really knocked my pants off.”
Well, I trust that Kenny’s going to step up to the plate from here on out, become that voice, make more effort to give back, and use his own Internet fame for what he sees to be good.
We all have our own decisions to make. We can choose to go to the latest web conference and hear 37 white guys give their 1,412th rendition of an hour-long talk. (And sometimes get some great value from it.) We can keep up with whomever we choose via Twitter, Facebook, RSS, e-mail, or old-fashioned stalking. So go ahead and follow, unfollow, friend, de-friend, or do whatever you do on a given network.
One thing I am sure about the web design and development community is that it’s one of the healthiest, kindest communities I’ve ever been a part of. Sure, there are some sour apples. But as someone still too dumb to have made many meaningful contributions (but working on it), I have access to my heroes in a way that isn’t the case in any other field I know of. I’ve had coffee, email exchanges, meals, and conversations that have made me feel the way getting a Greg Maddux autograph did as a kid. Except I can pretty much do it any time I want.
That’s amazing. And I’m grateful for it, even if I don’t agree with everyone on everything. (And even though there are plenty of people with whom I don’t agree on much.) But the more that we can hash out our issues publicly and kindly, the better the web will be for it.
