Why? Because I am not the only one that got turned on to Kos and Atrios, et al, by Tom Tomorrow. Tom draws "This Modern World", a long time progressive cartoon. It has come up before and it's certain that Tom turned a lot of people toward Kos with his constant praise. (Kos deserves a little credit for earning the praise, sure... I guess... a little :)
But it's fair to say that Tom's is the Grandfather of the Lefty Blogs... especially promoting the "fighting progressives". I think I could mount an argument that his strip was a blog to begin with (the kind with no comments), if I tried.
Update [2005-5-11 22:33:10 by pyrrho]: btw, Wil posts at dkos, which I had forgotten... as CleverNickName (thanks Abou Ben Adhem)
Front-Paged at jScoop under meta-blogging
Tom just said on Air America's "Majority Report" that he got into blogging via Wil Wheaton. Wil played young Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek The Next Generation". (The link up is forming) This was before Tom even knew the term "blog", but Wil did.
Wil Wheaton had posted a This Modern World cartoon at his web log, Tom saw this, and the rest is history. Really recent history, but history.
I myself found Wil through the first of the widespread web logs, the tech logs, in particular via slashdot ("News for Nerds, stuff that matters"), which displayed a geeky fascination with Wil's blog due to his past as Wesley Crusher and via the realization that Wil is really cool, even though Wesley wasn't. Isn't that amazing..? the actor is not the same as the character! astounding! </sarcasm> But even without sarcasm, Wesley was so detestable that one thought perhaps in this case Wil should be too.
Wil had a great blog, writing about his personal struggles trying to build an acting career as an adult, his time as Wesley being more of a lead weight than head start. He wrote of the huge amount of disrespect and bad feelings the Trekkie world paid him. He wrote about his family life and his small worries and achievements in a honest and personal way. Not only was Wesley the most despised Trek character ever, but come to think of it, among Trekkies, he was possibly the only despised Trek character ever.
Tom recognized the format was perfect for redoing his own web site and Tom's blog was born. Although Tom has threatened to shelf it from time to time because of the demand of daily blogging, he has relented when pressed by reasonable readers to ignore the complainers and write what he wants and only when he wants (whew).
So thank you Wil Wheaton for it all, and if he had not needed to vent the indignity of being Wesley and being looked down upon by Trekkies, Tom's blog might not exist and I may still not know about Kos and Atrios... which would be a shame.
Ok, maybe I owe Wil more than the rest of you... so how did you find out about the progressive blogosphere?
Anyway I just find this sort of "it's a small world on the internets" fact an interesting cultural artifact. The culture in this case being the now vibrant culture of the progressive blogosphere.
PS: Wil's diligence and blog seemed to have worked for Wil who is now a satisfied published author.
His blog is here.
Tom's is here.
I assume you know the rest.