Wine Blogs and High End Audio Blogs
There is a little bit of a wee hissy fit by bloggers and ‘pro’ writers who write about wine.
Here is one article that kind of provides an overview:
First, note that winos have 1000s of blogs while we audiophiles have maybe 10. You can take that to mean there are not many audiophiles, or that we are very passive and apathetic, or we are on average Luddites. [Think the 1st two explanations are close to the truth].
Second, what has bloggers all upset is that someone, a pro-writer [but this is really beside the point – something that the wine bloggers do not grok. It is really passionate and knowledgeable versus casual and novice… NOT old school writer versus bloggers… that ‘about’ was NOT talking about the blogger I linked to who seems to have quite a bit of experience and passion], pointed out that a lot of people are posting their opinions even though their breadth of experience is quite lacking. I.E. they really do not have any real perspective with which to determine and describe what a wine is like … or a piece of equipment sounds like!
And this last is certainly a pet peeve of mine – that many reviewers and most forums post reviews by people who have no clue what they are talking about. For example, how many times have you read ‘Best XZY that I have ever heard!!!’ and then checked out there previous reviews and associated equipment and find out that their system really sucks compared to the piece under review. That YOUR system is way better than theirs… and that YOU would have been able to hear a lot more into what the component can do than they did.
So why do people even read these reviews? Perhaps, as the linked to wine blogger indicated, it is mostly industry types who read them, and, unfortunately, people trying to make a quick buying decision using Google and reviews by anyone who can bang on the keys on a keyboard.
What those people trying to make a buying decision need is a way to rate the Reviewer. Lijit started with this idea, but has changed their business model more often than Fremer changed LPs. Vut the idea is to make a list of quality wine reviewers, quality high end audio reviewers,etc. somewhere so that the internet babel-verse makes some sense.
good idea
Pulitzer was created to rate news reporters on their “neutrality” after years of political parties creating news and spins for their paying candidates. Now we are back to those very organizations doing the same thing.
Today no one seems to care about quality in anything and look for news or reviews that back what they already believe instead of the truth.
Our entire society is upside down where what once was bad is now good and what is good was once bad.
You can try to blame a generation of parents that raised kids passively with as little effort as possible as long as they were “friends’ with their kids, or blame a very self center people who don’t care if there is something more to life and eternity than their little world.
The core problem in my opinion is that people today are small. While the world is at their finger tips they have shrunk inside unable to talk instead of texting, unable to discern right from wrong because there are no longer absolutes, and care only about themselves and how famous they can become by being stupid on You Tube.
The only way to teach an abstract concept of truth and quality is to mature people enough for them to understand that there are realities that can’t be explained and just because you haven’t experienced something, that does not define its existence.
I have taught my kids that every decision has trade offs and consequences. Sometimes we don’t know what these are for years but to deny the reality is to be a fool in a fools world.