theharrylouistreatise:
theharrylouistreatise:
Oh hello, Blind Gossip! It’s been quite a long time.
I’ve seen at least half a dozen people indirecting me since I posted this. Each criticism was some explicit or implicit variation on “Blind Gossip hasn’t been right for a long time, so you shouldn’t blog about them.”
I think that perspective is short-sighted (among other things). Here is my position on Blind Gossip: as long as it looks like 1DHQ — or other forces — may be using it for narrative purposes, it’s worth paying attention to.
I don’t CARE if Blind Gossip is right. (And I KNOW they aren’t trustworthy — in fact, I’ve talked AT GREAT LENGTH about that very thing. I’m sure they make up stories out of thin air on the regular! Maybe the one above is one of them!) I do not continue to post their 1D blinds because I believe them. I post them because I care about tracking the narratives they’re spreading — because BG is part of the conversation just like Yahoo Celeb UK and Sugarscape and every tabloid people reblog all the time — some of which are EQUALLY or even LESS reliable sources! BG promotes particular narratives just like other media outlets do. You might not LIKE Blind Gossip, and you might not personally want to give them hits, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth paying attention to what they say — or at the least, that I’m not going to roll my eyes at you if you tell ME I shouldn’t be interested in what they say.
I’m interested in this blind not because I think it’s true or false (I have no opinion), or because it says that Harry (I assume) is gay (which is, by the way, a position BG has ALWAYS held consistently — I see some confusion on that point in the tags). I am interested because we had a flurry of really hostile blinds late this summer, preceded by a weedgate blind that looked like it came straight from 1DHQ — and then Blind Gossip was suddenly dead silent on 1D for more than three months. I’m interested in the fact that this is (probably) the first blind in a long time. I’m interested in that silence, and I’m interested in why they’ve broken it. And I’m interested in whether we’ll get more blinds that appear to come straight from Simon Jones.
I think all of those things are worth paying attention to. If you don’t, that’s fine, but be forewarned that I intend to keep discussing Blind Gossip as long as I think they have any relevance.
And let me be clear: that determination of “relevance” has little to nothing to do with whether they’re telling the truth, and everything to do with the nature and possible origins of the narratives they push.