A Blog Is a Coffee Shop
When I interviewed for an editing job last summer, I met my soon-to-be boss at a Starbucks near our house. It is an exciting place—not your ordinary, run-of-the mill coffee stop. There is a fireplace in the lobby, and several nooks crowded with tables and chairs or couches. On a Saturday morning the shop will generally be in a buzz. On one table a few people will have their Bibles out and be engaged in discussion; at another will be a businessman in his suit, earnestly conversing with a clipboard-bearing companion; a more aged group will sit on the couches slowly sipping their drinks; and giddy high school girls will flit around gossiping about—something or another.
Coffee Shops
Coffee houses, if the conventional story is to be trusted, sprang up in Europe in the mid seventeenth century. They were places where people of all classes could congregate, where aristocrats talked philosophy, merchants talked trade, and eager young Jacobites talked revolution. They were havens of discourse, where the recently-invented newspapers were mulled over with friends, and where a person might be shouted down but never bored.
As they developed, different shops attracted their own groups of customers. In eighteenth-century London, there were Tory houses, Whig houses, and houses where you could find merchants and stockjobbers.
The same is true today. The coffee shop I mentioned earlier is a hub of upper-middle class suburbans. The Kaladi’s by my campus, on the other hand, is a favorite haunt of liberal-arts professors and the more avant-garde students. There are more Apple laptops there than PCs, the coffee is free-trade friendly, and you could well hear some Italian or French as you pass the tables on your way in.
Blogs
If you imagine the world wide web as a city, it is easy to see that blogs play the traditional role of coffee houses. They are individual places within the metropolis. Each has its own feel, fans, and customary topic. And each is a center for talking, arguing, and learning: although there are spokesmen, the conversation is usually two-way.
Moreover, blogs have an advantage over coffee houses. In a brick-and-mortar shop, you have to know the right people to join or follow the conversation. Blogs are unique and empowering because they are truly open to anyone. They are the only place where you can hear the lively dialog of great minds (or the gossip of more ordinary ones), and expect to have access to, and even a say in, the conversation. They are a combination of the best of the world of books (where you can learn from anyone, even if you’re not acquainted with them) and the world of discussion (where you can ask questions and voice opinions). And while they will never replace either of those worlds, they enhance both.
If you’re interested in Turkish coffee, you might check out my link partner.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
One of the advantages of blogs vs coffee shops, is that blogs can be so specific. While a coffee shop might attract liberal arts majors from one area, a blog could attract specifically British history majors.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Good point. Since the internet is not spatially limited, all the British history majors in the world could come to a blog, but there might not be enough in any one place to fill a coffee shop.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I agree. But the nice thing about a coffee shop is the atmosphere. *is nostalgic* There’s just something about being with a group of people you don’t know and sharing a mutual feeling of enjoyment of the coffee. Or the music. …Maybe I’m not making sense. Staying up late will do that do some people…
March 18th, 2008 at 5:25 am
I completely agree. Blogs haven’t invaded the coffee shop world; they’ve just moved into a neighboring island, so we can enjoy the new and the old ways of discourse simultaneously. Plus, coffee shop conversations can be even more interesting once people have been sharpened by online discussion.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
[...] Abdiel Press - Coffee Shops [...]