2000 Bloggers are Depressing

Tino Buntic decided recently to put together a collage of photos of 2000 bloggers. His criteria for entry were quite simple -- post your blog URL on his site and make sure that there's a photo available on it. He'd take care of the rest. This simple idea has spread rapidly among bloggers all of who are eager to become part of this collage. I'm not exception.

The idea is clever and appeals to the egos of bloggers sufficiently to make it quite viral. If Tino hasn't already hit 2000, he will in short order. The idea also seems to bring with it a bit of fun as everyone whose image is posted gets excited and posts an entry to their blog about it. Unfortunately for me I had to dwell on it and now I've realized that the whole thing is depressing.

Before I get in to why I think it's depressing, take a look at this slice of the collage that contains 496 photos.

At first glance you might think this is cool. After all, doesn't this collage show that the blogging community is alive and well? And that whether you're an A-lister or not, you can still join hands with your fellow blogger. Blah, blah, blah.

Now here's the same image except I've highlighted my photo.

What this photo is really saying is that even with just 496 photos, you're lost in the shuffle. You'd have a hard time finding your photo and you're probably the most familiar with what you look like. Imagine how long it would take for someone else to find it? Instead, you, like the other 1999 bloggers just blend in with no way of standing out. Your blog, no matter how hard you try, will never breakout from having just a handful of readers.

Isn't that depressing?