This has nothing to do with real popularity, but with the pseudo-popularity that comes with the attendant “benefits” of things happening with a blawg, or a blawger, that aren’t anticipated.  Whether it’s being sued by a dog-shooter because you’re viewed as the easiest mark around, or praised at the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers Conference for highlighting impropriety, you never know what the day will bring.

I received two surprises yesterday.  The first one, via Mark Bennett, was that there was a new scraper in town.  This one called himself , with the URL of expert-legal-advice dot com.  No name is mentioned at the website, but the Whois reports that its run by Phillip Vadala out of Sydney, Australia. 

The site offers blurbs from a mere seven legal blogs, Above the Law, How Appealing, Life at the Bar, SCOTUSBlog, Volokh Conspiracy, WSJ Law Blog and Simple Justice.  Click through to read the full story, and you’ll find the complete image of the blawg, from title bar to side bar, post included.  Except it’s not the blawg.  It’s copied onto an expert-legal-advice URL.  Yet another entrepreneur who is of the view that the content created by others is a great thing to sell, much like the USLaw dot com scam before it.  Only this time, there’s a mere seven blawgs being scraped. 

Despite my having sent a very nice email over to explain that a business model based upon stealing content from others isn’t really a good thing, it’s still there.  Maybe the Wall Street Journal will do some heavy lifting this time around. [Update: I’ve heard from Phillip, who was unaware that scraping was wrong, and, in a very cooperative fashion, agreed to remove the full posts from his website and link back to the original posts instead.]

Then I learned from a commenter that there’s a forum called JD Underground, which apparently is a website for young lawyers to complain to each other about the misery of their lives and the law.  For anyone who still doubts the existence of the Slackoisie, this is living proof.  It’s Slackoisie Central.

The commenter asked whether I was aware of a discussion about me over there.  About me?  Why the heck would these kids want to talk about me?  Well, for whatever reason, they did, and there was a thread at the forum called Is scott greenfield a JDU poster?

While I’m honored, in a peculiar way, that these young lawyers care enough about what an old lawyer has to say to even ask the question, but I’m afraid that the answer is no.  The thread itself is disheartening.  So many fragile little teacups with so little understanding.  As another commenter here asked, was I upset that they were calling me “mean” rather than curmudgeon?  Well, it wasn’t my first choice, but if that’s the way my views are perceived, there isn’t much I can (or care to) do about it.

I understand only too well that young lawyers are characterized by narcissism and entitlement, that they grew up in a world without criticism and therefore see anything critical as mean and bitter.  It’s sad that they can’t connect the dots, that the misery they complain of may have a little something to do with their facile external excuses for all the failure and disappointment of their brief lives.  But they can call me any names they like.  Maybe the discussion, superficial and immature though it may be, will eventually have an impact on one of them and they’ll stop whining and starting doing something to improve their lot.  It’s a stretch, but it could happen.

The point of all this is to contrast the experience of a somewhat more experienced blawger with the new ones who, like my fragile teacups at JD Underground, cry, lash out or run walk away when they aren’t met with appreciation and warmth.  It’s not just you.  You aren’t special, singled out because you are new to the blawgosphere and beaten to a pulp by the old guys.  It’s all of us.  Me and you.  We are all subject to the scrutiny, whether we’ve been here for years or minutes.  And those who can’t take it won’t make it.

Over at WindyPundit, Mark wrote a tongue-in-cheek post the other day following my effort to explain to new blawgers that their marketing patrons were less than forthright when they induced them to start a blawg and rake in the bucks.  The title of his post is Surviving Scott Greenfield, an homage of sorts.  If I was inclined to be concerned about maintaining a carefully crafted internet persona, I might be troubled by being named the poster boy for maligning new bloggers.  But I’m not.  Windy offered 8 pieces of advice, and it well serves new blawgers to read them.  That I was used as the vehicle to make a larger point is how the deal works.  I write stuff and it provides the fodder for others. 

No one in the blawgosphere is immune or above either criticism, disagreement or commentary.  We are all the fodder for each other’s posts because ideas feed on themselves. That’s how it should be.  I am quite content suffering the slings and arrows, as well as shooting off a few of my own when it seems appropriate.  I don’t cry about it.  I don’t whine about it.  And, frankly, it’s far better that some Slackoisie think of me as a grumpy old meanie than not think at all.

For crying out loud, you little teacups, suck it up, write what you think and buck up for the storm that may blow your way.  It’s either that or run away.  Knowing that the storm can strike at any moment will push you to think a little harder, write a little better and contribute something a lot more worthwhile than the crap that masqueraded as ideas up to now when you chatted amongst your Slackoisie pals and thought you were solving the problems of the world by blaming everyone out there but yourselves.  Take a stand and then prepare for the worst.  Stop being a teacup.