18 December 2006

something in the water?

I've grumbled and groaned before about the low quality of online postings, but seriously -- what's going on out there? Did someone pull the plug on the sink of intelligence, as most all the content of any interest or ntoability seems to be swirling down the drain hole.

Most discussion boards seem to be sucking huge amounts of warm air, overflowing with pointless insipid whiny non-funny stabs at wit and pith and insight but which end up coming across like a 17 year old nerd raging at the gods at a bad party in the throes of his first beer buzz. Blog posts are down, and responses too (at least, they surely seem so on the few dozen blogs I still manage to stay at all interested in).

Maybe it's the holidays, or maybe it's just that everyone is focused elsewhere (likely pretending to be shit-hot 18 year old lesbians on MySpace...), or maybe I'm just projecting some sort of self-loathing onto the Universe as a whole, and the problem is actually all in my head (unlikely, as in recent poling some 76% of the voices I hear in there agree with me that WE are fine and everything else is the problem).

What's wrong with you people?

Say something interesting. Or funny. Or intelligent. Or something.
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so above you all that I suffer near-constant nosebleeds B

6 comments:

aggiebrett said...

I think a better winner would have been "EVERYONE EXCEPT YOU"

That's a cover worth framing.
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B

Scott the Reader said...

I'm just tired.

Ryan Rasmussen said...

I'm sorry, man. I'll try to do better. I promise. I can do it. I know I can. Don't give up on me, Brett. Don't give up on me!

aggiebrett said...

Whining that blogs are bad takes on a different meaning when it's a print rag doing the whining. Methinks the WSJ yearns for those days of yore when they had greater relevance due to less competition (or perhaps merely congestion) in the court of public attention.

And my point was not specific to just blogs, but most all online content (even that from the august erudite snobs at the WSJ). Increasingly it seems as though there is greater content in terms of mass but less in terms of weight and significance.

I think there is an unfortunate sort of life-arc to any such information system: there is the thrilling incendiary early stage when all things seem possible and the few important movers and shakers stand in stark relief as they are bright lights in an empty room.

Then comes the expansion when news gets out that Something Interesting is going on, and suddenly there's tremendous growth and the hipness starts to carry weight once borne by relevance.

Then comes that sad tipping point when enough of the slack-jawed dullards arrive to make the place no longer worth half a damn. When debate is finally forever replaced by pompous proselytizing and propgandizing, by mouth-breathers moaning small thoughts and small ideas, by fearful idiots more eager to shout down any unfamiliar idea than they are to consider the terrifying notion that perhaps they do not know everything.

Sound familiar? Seems like we've sailed past this same shoal before, kemosabe.
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B

Thomas Crymes said...

Can you hear me from on high? The atmosphere doesn't carry sound that far up you say?

When you have a glut of blogs, it becomes easy to devolve into the glurge of topics that seem to travel around.

I think some good posts on story structure and character development and writing processes would be keen.

Hell, I might even do a few myself. I just want to be sure I can spout more than the latest trick some newbie has learned from McKee.

Grubber said...

E=MC2