The unveiling of
Hotsoup.com, a new online venture from a bunch of DLC types, GOP players, and predictable MSM figures, was covered very well a couple weeks ago in diaries by
wonkydonkey and
sheehanrocks. I have little to add to their excellent analyses. Except:
The Harvard Crimson published a fascinating article this morning, one which suggests we should look at this thing a little further. Executive summary: A website with a very similar concept to Hotsoup's, Essembly, was launched by a Harvard student last year; that student had shared his ideas and business plan with Ron Fournier at Harvard's Institute of Politics. Two years later Fournier is editor-in-chief of this big-time new venture that's based on the same basic idea.
I don't want to suggest anything untoward -- the situation is complex, and I have immense respect for Mr. Fournier. Scandal is the last thing anyone has in mind. But it makes you wonder: just where are the best ideas for politics today really coming from?
Full disclosure: I was contacted by the Crimson for an interview re the aforementioned story, though for some reason it never took place. Also, I'm a heavy Essembly user, and one of Essembly's development people is a good friend of mine. My perspective here is hardly objective.
And as stated above, nobody is accusing Ron Fournier of lifting students' ideas. That's laughable. But there are definite similarities, and definite connections (read the article if you're into details), which suggest that Hotsoup at least springs from the same inspirational well as Essembly.
And as an Essembly user -- where we have an incredible, diverse (especially intellectually), fun, vibrant community -- I find it more than a little funny that our little website is now being aped by these titans of the political world. Regardless of who came up with it first, the contrasts in the way these sites have been structured & developed are amazing.
Essembly has come up completely from the grassroots; it developed slowly, and has seen a recent explosion in new membership after being featured in Newsweek. Its spirit could be described as anarchic, or at least "fiercely non-partisan," as its welcome page declares in bold font. There is zero regulation of content by administrators; everything is freeform. It's joyful chaos. Just today I've had intense, wild arguments about the Electoral College, subsidies for study-abroad programs, whether Saddam Hussein is entitled to a fair execution, the validity of atheism as substitute for religious faith, and whether Michigan winters are as bad as Ontario's. I love it with all my heart.
And it's fast. Much like dKos and other blog communities, it's nimble enough to react instantly; right now, as I'm typing this diary, people are discussing this very issue. I have never been better informed about world events, and never had a chance to see so many fascinating & varying analyses in one place. Essembly is a great crystallization of the new online-politics paradigms; passionate, uncompromising, and totally organic.
But all is not well in the series of tubes. Bearing down on Essembly, (like a "big truck,") is Hotsoup.com, the newborn mouth-breathing behemoth of Internet political discussion. Matthew Dowd! Joe Lockhart! Three people from the almighty Glover Park Group! Instant coverage in the Washington Post and lots and lots of blogs. Let's take a look at what these boys are planning to do, per the Post:
A group of political strategists who have spent years firing heavy artillery at each other came together at the Hay-Adams Hotel yesterday, put aside their weapons, decried the polarized state of debate in America and vowed a new approach to peaceful coexistence.
Toward that end, they are launching a Web site that they hope will eventually reach 30 million opinion leaders, elevate public discussion on matters from politics to sports to culture and, in the process, make them some money.
Hallelujah!
Yes, a couple of kids with big ideas can build a thriving little community in their online backyards. Aren't they cute with their modems, give them a quarter to buy some ice-cream. But when this idea comes from the lobby of the Hay-Adams, we're expected to snap to attention; serious people are talking!
The elitism here is monumental. You can see it in the way they plan for Hotsoup to operate. While Essembly is completely egalitarian, aimed at giving the little guy a voice, look at where Hotsoup puts its priorities (per Reuters):
HotSoup will invite well-known political personalities to discuss agenda-leading topics, whether a debate on gay marriage or U.S. immigration issues.
HotSoup will also allow audience members to spin off their own topics into smaller forums.
One can almost take comfort in the idiocy of this; I somehow doubt that most Internet politicos will settle for the crumbs that Fournier "allows" them to chew on. (It is not by accident that Daily Kos, with its egalitarian diary system, is such a juggernaut.) I expect Hotsoup to crash and burn, more or less in tandem with the paralyzed establishmentarian politics that produced it; while Essembly will probably just grow and adapt like the natural organism it is. Which is how it should be...
...eventually. But in the meantime it still depresses me to see things like this, taken from the aforementioned Crimson article:
Essembly currently has 20,000 users, according to Green. Hotsoup, which will launch in October, had 300,000 hits in its first week on the web.
Publicity. It's all about publicity. When we still rely on the Post to give us our tips, a beautiful thing like Essembly doesn't hold a candle to the most formulaic things Beltway elites can crap out. The Internet is supposed to be a meritocracy, but we're far from that yet; in fact, ideas that start and grow in the grassroots can -- even today -- be coopted and corrupted by self-aggrandizing DC jackasses, and nobody except a college paper bored on its summer break bats an eye.
Viva la Internet Revolucion, indeed.