Another First for the Blogosphere

Kind of fitting that today, on the day I belatedly celebrated this blog’s third anniversary, that blogs, blogging, and the blogosphere were featured prominently in a primetime network television show. Granted, blogs were mentioned briefly in August on the Dead Zone, and blogs have been discussed by newscasters hundreds of times, but this was different.

Why was this different? First, it was the West Wing, a multiple Emmy winning juggernaut on MSNBC and not just some run largely unknown cable show which reaches more early adopters and has a higher geek quotient than network television.

Second, unlike the way blogs are treated normally- as a curiosity or a novelty- watch how news types and news anchors sort of choke on the word blog, as if it is some foreign disease- blogs and the blogosphere were written into the dialog as if everyone knows what blogs are. In this episode, rumors about CJ’s sexuality were being discussed as the opposition to the Bartlett White House was fighting a marriage amendment to the budget bill. CJ and other characters frequently referenced blogs, with the press secretary stating that “rumors are all over the blogosphere.”

As the Instapundit stated a little over two years ago:

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. And you will like it!

Props to Bill Quick, who coined the term blogosphere.