Gapers Block

Fnews chats with the good people of a new website called Gapers Block about weblogging, ways the Internet has changed the idea of community, and how to dispel the myth of the “Second City”

“Chicago has a little sibling complex,” says Cinnamon Cooper over beers and snacks at Wicker Park’s new Handlebar restaurant. We’ve gathered here for an F interview with ten of her friends — like Cooper, all contributors to Gapers Block, a five-month old Chicago-centric cultural and social site that is poised to prove that our kind of town is no snot-nosed kid.

We’ve been debating whether the old cliché is true: that creative types may get their start in Chicago, but eventually leave, taking their talent to the coasts. There seems to be a consensus at the table that it’s not the case anymore — or, at least, that one can make one’s mark in the Chicago art/media scene without any reason to leave. If this is true, it is due in part to a stronger sense of community, bolstered by the ability to connect with like-minded locals via the Internet.
While media-conglomerate sites like Metromix and Citysearch dictate how to spend the night (and your entire paycheck) on the town, Andrew Huff and Nazarin Hamid saw a need for an alternative online source in Chicago for offbeat event listings, commentary, and conversation as there are in San Francisco and New York.

Gapersblock.com, the site they founded and maintain, is the answer: a combination of a cultural and social site and a community of artists and webloggers.

When Gapers Block Editor-in-Chief Huff, a freelance writer and prolific blogger, proposed the idea on his own site, me3dia.com, earlier this year, his readers’ response was resoundingly supportive, though somewhat skeptical:


Great links:

Gapersblock.com
me3dia.com

maintenance would be an ongoing, demanding job. But his friend Hamid, a designer/programmer and musician whom Huff met through a Chicago bloggers’ Yahoo! group and had worked with on other online projects, signed on right away.

Huff and Hamid explain that the name Gapers Block came from their search for a Chicago-specific concept. Here, a “gaper’s block” or “gaper’s delay” is the phenomenon of a traffic jam due to an accident, exacerbated by motorists gaping at the scene. In other parts of the nation it’s called rubbernecking, but here it’s gaper’s block. Huff, Hamid, and company ran with the concept, outfitting the site with traffic-themed sections: “Merge” (news, links, sundry information), “Fuel” (topical question open to public comments), “Airbags” (commentary), “Detour” (Chicago-centric feature articles), “Rearview” (photography), “Headlights” (coming events), and “Drive-In” (restaurant reviews).

The content is bolstered by a smart, user-friendly design by Hamid, its Creative Director, which (especially for a collaborative site) looks consistently clean and elegant. Powered by the customizable publishing software Movable Type, it’s a delight for design snobs.

Among the most informative aspects of the site are the listings of events, news and web links that include some of the coolest, little-known stuff going on in the city and the ’net, neatly categorized, searchable, and updated consistently. Leaving club and movie listings to the alternative newsweeklies and commercial websites, Gapers Block’s “Merge” section is a treasure chest of miscellaneous information. Samples: notice of events like Cheap Trick’s appearance at the new Magnificent Mile Apple store; information on booking a CTA El train car for a private party; the fact that the longnose dace is the official fish of Chicago. In the addictive “Fuel” section, readers share their opinions on everything from books, sports, and civic issues to metrosexuality and awkward pickup lines.

The popularity of Gapers Block has grown exponentially since its debut at the end of May 2003, mainly through links from individuals’ blogs — a kind of online word-of-mouth, and now receives about 900 unique visits daily. Initially funded out-of-pocket by Huff, the site has now received enough donations to recoup his costs.

Given the amount of media attention that the blogging phenomenon has garnered, I can’t help but notice that Gapers Block offers about the best introduction into blogging culture — and the ingenious possibilities weblogs can create — than almost anywhere on the Internet. Most of the site’s regular contributors update their own sites regularly, which are each mature, focused, funny, and engaging in their own ways.

“We wanted to get a good range of different voices,” says Huff. “So we looked at the blogs we liked ... who had a strong voice and seemed to be clued into different aspects of the city.” Indeed, the diversity of contributors on the site is what makes it unique as well as engaging. Recent articles include an investigation into the creepy Showmen’s Rest monument at Woodlawn Cemetery by Wendy McClure, a poignant essay by Ramsin Cannon about the changing face of a working-class neighborhood, and Lacey Graves’ female perspective on the male-dominated Wizard World 2003 comics/sci-fi convention. A new regular feature is “Ask the Librarian,” in which resident librarian Alice Maggio researches answers to questions about arcane Chicago facts and history.

The fact that you can get to know Gapers Block contributors online through their posts and blogs makes me feel like a bit of a voyeur, as if I haven’t just met them for the interview tonight. Since I don’t even feel comfortable keeping a paper diary, I ask the Gapers Block staff about the politics of journaling one’s life in such a public way. I’ve noticed that although the intimacy level of bloggers varies widely, the best ones are reflections of their personalities and often contain personal anecdotes.

It is very much a reflection of my life and a journal,” says contributor Brian Sobolak. “But ... there are really things that you don’t want to talk about because they’re not things other people need to know. For example, I started my blog right after I got divorced and I never wrote about that at all because it’s really tasteless. Who wants to read about [that?] ... I think you have to apply some sort of filter on the raw experience that you have of life.”

Sobolak adds, “if you do put all your stupid crap about your cats and your ex-boyfriend [online], ... now it’s really easy to find it ... When I was getting divorced, my lawyer wrote and said ‘I really love your site’ and I was sort of scared shitless ’cause he was my lawyer, you know?”

“My therapist found my website,” another blogger chimes in. “My dad reads mine,” says contributor Shylo Bisnett. Personal boundaries seem necessary for the sake of good writing as well as privacy. “You can sort of tell when people sit down and write something [that] they actually write it, instead of just ... ‘I’m gonna ramble here, and not check it and not craft it,’” notes Hamid.

In the midst of this discussion, Paul McCann, who, because he’s been blogging for four years is the veteran at the table, reminds us that “the concept of a weblog is to explore the Internet and explore what you found ... Now the personal journals are sort of different from what the original concept was.” Regardless of how many blogs have transformed into more diary than log, the possibilities of blog format and technology is something about which everyone can agree. Several people mention its usefulness as a communications tool in the business world, and Alice Maggio says that several public library systems, including Chicago’s, are using weblogs: “[they’re] a great tool for getting to their patrons.”

But enough about work — back to what the Internet is really about — socializing. As I sip my pint of ale, I realize that if I need evidence about whether virtual communities have helped strengthen real-world ones, it’s here at our beer-garden table. And, as the Gapers Block staff reminds me, this has happened alongside more physical developments. Huff says, “I’ve noticed, and I’ve lived here all my life, that the art community especially seems to have strengthened, there are people who are staying instead of going to New York, and I think that’s great. When I was a teenager there were no [creative] neighborhoods. The fact that there are neighborhoods that are known for being ... artists’ communities is a major change in the last ten years.”

Hamid agrees: “The coolest thing about the Midwest is that Chicago [if you’re from the Midwest] becomes the next biggest city -— it becomes your New York. You can go a little more forward in Chicago than you would on the coasts. You can live in a nicer neighborhood and afford a nicer apartment.” In spite of the fact that Chicago may be more accessible for creative, ambitious people, he admits that there’s a lot of room for improvement, and room for everyone to have a voice. “A lot of people in Chicago who do cool stuff assume we’re not as cool because we aren’t on the coasts, so we don’t talk about it, adds Cooper. “It’s true across all creative aspects, and [in] activism,” she notes. “But that’s changing.”

“Chicago needs to kick some ass,” Hamid says. “Let’s do that.”