Meet Joe Blog

Meet Joe Blog is a piece about the advantages/rise of blogs and the disadvantages of them. Lev Grossman, the author, describes how blogs have transformed from a nerdy fad to a mainstream alternative to news and other media outlets. Blogs used to be not even noticed by many americans at all and only techinal savvy and nerds blogged. Blogs today are more common than back in the 1990s and are a source for people to give their biased opinion of things that have not even hit the main media yet. Grossman explains how blogs keep stories alive while mainstream media keeps it dead for a few days. He used the example of a man who had made a speech about a man's segregational leanings and blogs forced the story into the mainstream and then he had to apologize. He also explains how blogs are so effective, because they are free. Anyone can go online and blog about anything they want, and no one can stop them. It gives a voice "to the little guy". He gives some disadvantages to blogs as well. He states that blogs carry gossip around and don't let it die. He used the alleged affair between John Kerry and a woman as his example. He then goes on to explain how blogs could become a powerful source of elections and campaigns, since it is a major form of communication these days.