Rob Neyer: “Us” vs “Them”
Rob Neyer is by far one of my favourite writers when it comes to baseball analysis, but is also one of my favourite writers, period. He was a writer at ESPN.com for fifteen years until Monday, when he surprisingly announced that he was leaving. On Tuesday, he announced that he was moving over to SB Nation with a well-written introduction post (along with four other regular baseball posts; start with The World of Predictions). His message was clear:
We know we can’t do it without you. Around here, there’s no them. There’s only us, and we’re all in this thing together.
It’s the key thing that makes blogging different than the old media. There is a conversation happening online that is not exclusively just for the readers. The authors have a fair opportunity to participate, and if they fail to participate, their audience will likely dwindle to nothing. A lot of bloggers talk about replying to as many comments as they can on their own posts to help build their community. It is quite rare to see a blog with a large following with an author who spends a great deal of time responding to comments (Timothy Ferriss’ blog is an exception that comes to mind).
Rob Neyer wrote about it so well that I don’t think I need to contribute more to the conversation. I will, however, point how immensely popular Neyer is. Look at this graphic for search results:
On top of that, there is a roundup of some big sports writers commenting about this move (Dan Shanoff, Will Leitch, Dave Cameron, and more at the SBNation blog). If you want a proper introduction to Rob Neyer, I suggest starting with Dave Cameron’s post, but Will Leitch summarized I how I feel right now:
Neyer’s not dying, of course: He’ll keep writing, and I’ll keep reading. But, as Jonah Keri put it earlier today, Neyer was a gateway drug, not just to baseball for me, but to ESPN.com, and to long-form, intelligent writing online, and the endless possibilities of what you could do with the Web. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Rob, so for that, I thank him, and you should blame him. Neyer affected tens of thousands of baseball fans. I am just one of them.
By James McCullough
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