Dear blogosphere, you suck
It is a sad day, my friends, when even Whataburger sounds unappealing. Damn this vile virus that has absconded with my appetite, clogged my lungs and flooded my nostrils. Now it's the freakin' weekend, and being sick is no fun.
Speaking of a downer, when did political commentary on the Internets devolve from pointless pontification to useless namecalling? I think the catalyst was righteousness — blog triumphalism, if you will. In the wake of Memogate and whatnot, bloggers succumbed to a youthful idealism, common in aspiring journalists, that they could actually change things. Quickly, though, whether bloggers realized it or not, it became clear that blogs' sphere o' influence really extended only to that entity which they preyed off of: the media.
Blogs are most useful as learning tools, in my opinion — places where one can go to learn another angle, another facet of an issue to help formulate an opinion. They very rarely, if ever, have any effect on actual policy. I finally figured this all out while wondering what separated Kevin Drum's blog from most others. He seems genuinely sets out to inform you about the issue he is discussing, rather than trying to find the best possible way to score a partisan point. And so I learn things from his blog. I refer people who are confused about social security to his posts on the topic.
But in the wake of the change things movement, blogs of both political persuasions veered toward activism, whehter on behalf of a candidate or party or in the pursuit of bringing down the tyranny of liberal MSM. After the election and its emotional fall out had cleared, there really wasn't much left to argue about. So the blogosphere seems to have concentrated on the only place where it actually has much sway: with the media itself.
It feels like the blogosphere has turned even more inward and is busy devouring itself. These days, there's a lot of boring namecalling going on; a bunch of weird shouting matches about who's got the biggest set of intellectual balls; and the occasional "blog swarm," which usually sets out to ruin some random guy because of one awkward sentence he uttered — and not a whole lot else. I mean, really, how important is what some CNN producer may or may not have said? Why do I care that Juna Cole and Glenn Reynolds each think the other is an idiot? Why do I care what Glenn Reynolds thinks to begin with? Why the fuck are so many people devoting weeks of their lives to investigating the scholarship of that shmuck ... shit, I can't even remember his name anymore. The guy who blamed the victims of 9/11 for their own deaths. Whatever. In a couple weeks it will all matter as much as that dumb comment from Harvard's professor a while back, the one that prompted umpteen-thousand words of comment, critique and news report. It's worthless. I'm sick of it.
Starting next week, I'm just going to start posting exclusively about photography, mainly tutorials and tips, in the hopes that it proves useful to a few you.
I was thinking about all this as I sat around my place yesterday after calling in sick to work. I thought about writing this then, but decided to do something worthwhile. So I went through my old files and found every picture on my computer that I thought would be of interest to myself or a friend or a family member. The end result was an alarming 435 new photos to upload. Took me all day. But I think a lot of them will bring a smile to people's faces. There's the Carothers group, for one; the entire Meanest Capacity collection for another; or the complete Washington D.C. set for a third. Just go there and, if I've known you over the past seven years, there's a good chance a picture of you is in my collection.
E.B. White's aunt once said to him, "Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen." As I went through my photos, I was saddened by the volume of people and pictures I had nearly forgotten. You know, working in news, it's so easy to get consumed by all this back-and-forth bullshit, but it all vanishes so quickly, there's so little worth remembering in it. There's no beauty in Congress with a capital C.
So, as with this photo below, which I had almost completely forgotten, I'll say again, Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen.
Speaking of a downer, when did political commentary on the Internets devolve from pointless pontification to useless namecalling? I think the catalyst was righteousness — blog triumphalism, if you will. In the wake of Memogate and whatnot, bloggers succumbed to a youthful idealism, common in aspiring journalists, that they could actually change things. Quickly, though, whether bloggers realized it or not, it became clear that blogs' sphere o' influence really extended only to that entity which they preyed off of: the media.
Blogs are most useful as learning tools, in my opinion — places where one can go to learn another angle, another facet of an issue to help formulate an opinion. They very rarely, if ever, have any effect on actual policy. I finally figured this all out while wondering what separated Kevin Drum's blog from most others. He seems genuinely sets out to inform you about the issue he is discussing, rather than trying to find the best possible way to score a partisan point. And so I learn things from his blog. I refer people who are confused about social security to his posts on the topic.
But in the wake of the change things movement, blogs of both political persuasions veered toward activism, whehter on behalf of a candidate or party or in the pursuit of bringing down the tyranny of liberal MSM. After the election and its emotional fall out had cleared, there really wasn't much left to argue about. So the blogosphere seems to have concentrated on the only place where it actually has much sway: with the media itself.
It feels like the blogosphere has turned even more inward and is busy devouring itself. These days, there's a lot of boring namecalling going on; a bunch of weird shouting matches about who's got the biggest set of intellectual balls; and the occasional "blog swarm," which usually sets out to ruin some random guy because of one awkward sentence he uttered — and not a whole lot else. I mean, really, how important is what some CNN producer may or may not have said? Why do I care that Juna Cole and Glenn Reynolds each think the other is an idiot? Why do I care what Glenn Reynolds thinks to begin with? Why the fuck are so many people devoting weeks of their lives to investigating the scholarship of that shmuck ... shit, I can't even remember his name anymore. The guy who blamed the victims of 9/11 for their own deaths. Whatever. In a couple weeks it will all matter as much as that dumb comment from Harvard's professor a while back, the one that prompted umpteen-thousand words of comment, critique and news report. It's worthless. I'm sick of it.
Starting next week, I'm just going to start posting exclusively about photography, mainly tutorials and tips, in the hopes that it proves useful to a few you.
I was thinking about all this as I sat around my place yesterday after calling in sick to work. I thought about writing this then, but decided to do something worthwhile. So I went through my old files and found every picture on my computer that I thought would be of interest to myself or a friend or a family member. The end result was an alarming 435 new photos to upload. Took me all day. But I think a lot of them will bring a smile to people's faces. There's the Carothers group, for one; the entire Meanest Capacity collection for another; or the complete Washington D.C. set for a third. Just go there and, if I've known you over the past seven years, there's a good chance a picture of you is in my collection.
E.B. White's aunt once said to him, "Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen." As I went through my photos, I was saddened by the volume of people and pictures I had nearly forgotten. You know, working in news, it's so easy to get consumed by all this back-and-forth bullshit, but it all vanishes so quickly, there's so little worth remembering in it. There's no beauty in Congress with a capital C.
So, as with this photo below, which I had almost completely forgotten, I'll say again, Remembrance is sufficient of the beauty we have seen.
posted by Matt at 9:40 PM
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