"Blongs" is a neologism obviously contracted from the phrase "web belongings," i.e. the good stuff on the 'net that we want to share. In original intent, it wasn't so much a platform for activism or hobbyism, but a way to point people with similar interests toward the sites where they would fit in, "belong".
In that spirit, I offer this post bouncing off the recent entry "How to Start Reading Webcomix" over at Evidence and Wanderings.
On the Internet, the crowd itself becomes a personality. It is a ceaseless, inexhaustible throng speaking endlessly to its own delight, exasperation, rage, illumination and amusement. It is a voice more powerful than that which Homer says would be needed to recount the ships of the Achaians:
[More after the jump]
Actually, what it calls to mind more is this gem by William Gibson:
I happen to think this is not true. Or at least, not the complete truth. There is certainly an unhealthy amount of unchecked Id running rampant. But this is not all there is, either to the Internet, or to Human Nature generally.
For instance, during the Egyptian protests, the unfolding events were of innocuously academic interest to me, their reality too distant, too abstract -- until Cambridge Classics professor Mary Beard posted on her blog, A Don's Life, about her son's predicament in trying to get out of the country. Having this to imagine forced the history into vivid reality. I happen to like Professor Beard a lot; in addition to the tense drama of wondering whether her son would be all right, her blog also lets readers into her life enough to see her talk about the academic process, misspell words, ponder current events, occasionally ramble, and wonder about whether she might have done better without one more glass of wine the other night.
She's not just some British lady whose book I have stuck on my shelf. I keep books and articles by my favourite professors in my home library for the same reason -- I like the people and this is akin to intellectual scrapbooking. With the Internet, this process happens to take place in reverse.
Twitter is much the same, I think. I have become enormous fans of Paulo Coehlo, Stephen Fry, and Edward James Olmos because they are interesting people whom I'd invite to my theoretical "If I Could Invite Anyone to a Dinner Party" dinner party.
Strangely, and a little sadly, this is a falsifiable theory. I'm not just star-struck. I was for years quite an avid fan of Neil Gaiman, until I discovered his online presence through his blong and twitter accounts. To my great surprise, I don't like him. It's nothing personal; there's nothing about him I'd change. I just don't have the sense that we would get on. At all.
That being said, what I like best about the internet is finding amazing people. Soon after I got on twitter, I was followed by, or found, @raqhun, Dave Beard - a man with a poetic turn of phrase whom I like quite a lot but know nothing about and have never met. Happle Tea is a webcomix about "mythology and other things," written by someone calling themselves K, who has a sense of humour quite akin to my own, and puts into images the stories I like best.
This goes on and on; I follow another blong, done by the friend of a friend of a friend of my wife, who happens to be a great graphic artist and does all kinds of cool stuff with Indian-American pop culture.
I guess what I'm saying is that the world is full of things other than Greater Internet Fuckwads.
The End.
In that spirit, I offer this post bouncing off the recent entry "How to Start Reading Webcomix" over at Evidence and Wanderings.
On the Internet, the crowd itself becomes a personality. It is a ceaseless, inexhaustible throng speaking endlessly to its own delight, exasperation, rage, illumination and amusement. It is a voice more powerful than that which Homer says would be needed to recount the ships of the Achaians:
Who were the captains of Achaea? Who were the kings? / The mass of troops I could never tally, never name, / not even if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, / a tireless voice and the heart inside me bronze... [Iliad, 2.576ff in the Fagles translation]
[More after the jump]
Actually, what it calls to mind more is this gem by William Gibson:
"[Slitscan's audience] is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."This marvellously cynical description captures the essence of what we fear most about the brave new world we've had built for us. We fear that this is, in lump, what human beings are really like. This is also known as the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
I happen to think this is not true. Or at least, not the complete truth. There is certainly an unhealthy amount of unchecked Id running rampant. But this is not all there is, either to the Internet, or to Human Nature generally.
For instance, during the Egyptian protests, the unfolding events were of innocuously academic interest to me, their reality too distant, too abstract -- until Cambridge Classics professor Mary Beard posted on her blog, A Don's Life, about her son's predicament in trying to get out of the country. Having this to imagine forced the history into vivid reality. I happen to like Professor Beard a lot; in addition to the tense drama of wondering whether her son would be all right, her blog also lets readers into her life enough to see her talk about the academic process, misspell words, ponder current events, occasionally ramble, and wonder about whether she might have done better without one more glass of wine the other night.
She's not just some British lady whose book I have stuck on my shelf. I keep books and articles by my favourite professors in my home library for the same reason -- I like the people and this is akin to intellectual scrapbooking. With the Internet, this process happens to take place in reverse.
Twitter is much the same, I think. I have become enormous fans of Paulo Coehlo, Stephen Fry, and Edward James Olmos because they are interesting people whom I'd invite to my theoretical "If I Could Invite Anyone to a Dinner Party" dinner party.
Strangely, and a little sadly, this is a falsifiable theory. I'm not just star-struck. I was for years quite an avid fan of Neil Gaiman, until I discovered his online presence through his blong and twitter accounts. To my great surprise, I don't like him. It's nothing personal; there's nothing about him I'd change. I just don't have the sense that we would get on. At all.
That being said, what I like best about the internet is finding amazing people. Soon after I got on twitter, I was followed by, or found, @raqhun, Dave Beard - a man with a poetic turn of phrase whom I like quite a lot but know nothing about and have never met. Happle Tea is a webcomix about "mythology and other things," written by someone calling themselves K, who has a sense of humour quite akin to my own, and puts into images the stories I like best.
This goes on and on; I follow another blong, done by the friend of a friend of a friend of my wife, who happens to be a great graphic artist and does all kinds of cool stuff with Indian-American pop culture.
I guess what I'm saying is that the world is full of things other than Greater Internet Fuckwads.
The End.
The comic is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI will follow it forever now.
It is so easy to pretend that just because the rest of the people in the world aren't us or our friends directly that we can disregard them or believe them to be, well, Fuckwads by default. Thanks for the eloquent statements to contrary.