Ever since Blogger got famous, and more so when they broke up and Jack Saturn wrote his letter, I’ve been curious about the politics, personalities, romance, and drama behind the whole Pyra affair. I briefly IM’d with Matt about it once, but I certainly didn’t want to seem like I was prying for gossip.

Today, this Blogroots thread offered up a link to a good bit of old history from Rebecca Mead. Mention of a “Pyra Shrine” in that article led me to, um, EvLover, formerly the Pyra Shrine. (Okay, unless it’s a joke, this old site borders on the obsessive, which I find a bit scary.)

The pioneers of Blogger have become celebrities and idols in their own ongoing soap operas, and to most of us the upheavals consist largely of words on a screen. These people’s lives and struggles are known by so many, even as they retain their private person-on-the-street profiles. (Simulacra, anyone?) It says a lot for how hypertext — and blogging in particular — has so effectively blurred the distinction between public and private space. I doubt that any online medium illustrates that postmodern phenomenon more tangibly than the blog. Are these the baby steps on the path to the utopian hyperreality posited by Baudrillaird and other postructuralists, or are we just rubbernecking journals on the web for juicy personal tidbits?

(My apologies to Ev, Meg, Jason, Matt, and all the other old guard for my being a nosy neighbor. I don’t mean to be such an A-list usisero.)

Heh. Now wouldn’t that make an interesting movie. Think Pirates of Silicon Valley. I volunteer my “voice of God” accent for the movie trailer. “In a world…”