Blog Affiliates? Who knew?

The other day, I ran across a couple of posts on other blogs that discussed obtaining and/or becoming a blog affiliate. Maybe I'm the last person in the blogosphere to know about this, but I never heard of such a thing. Apparently some people took umbrage with the entire idea of it, saying it was just a big popularity contest.
In some, (I have no idea how many) one had to fill out an application and apply for the privilege. Folks were clamoring for the opportunity.