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Crisis of Content (I)
This statement is stolen directly from Dan Lyke. If I'd said it myself, the only phrases I'd change would be non-load-bearing ones (as they say in the construction industry).
While I've been busy blistingering and bruising my fingers building hardware, the rest of the world's been reacting to the AOL/Time-Warner merger, so I suppose I should toss out some commentary. In another forum Jesse James Garrett asked how two media companies managed to keep this quiet. Quite simple, really: journalism is dead. News has been manufactured for a while.
I didn't post anything on it on Flutterby because this shouldn't surprise anyone. AOL's been trying to advertise themselves as synonymous with the Internet ever since they got a browser. Those of us toiling outside the walled city need to make sure that we keep enough of interest out here in the fields that they need to keep the gates open, if we let that go we lose that small foothold we've managed for ourselves, and once again we no longer own the presses.
Actually, what I was going to write in this space was, "Years from now, when we look back at the death of independent information sources, we'll do Carbon-14 dating and find that this is when it first became obvious which way the future would go." But Dan's right. It's been happening for a while.
Poor AOL users. They get hell from the rest of us anyway, because there are so many of them that statistics alone say there are more clueless under the AOL banner than on the rest of the internet. Now they're going to get extra snarls and growls for something that isn't really their fault. Of course, they could boycott AOL by changing internet providers ... and get better service in the bargain ... but many people are willing to sell their soul for ease-of-use, unfortunately, so it'll never happen en masse.
That's one of the things that got me disillusioned with education. I learned that a frighteningly high number of people like things dumbed down. Their news, their ISPs, their entertainment ....
All I can say is - and for once I don't give a damn how intellectually snotty this sounds - if you're in that category, you are going to get everything you deserve.
Pity you have to bring the rest of us down with you.
Why, yes, I am cranky this morning. Why do you ask?
I didn't get much sleep, and I'm up early, and there's no actual coffee in the house. So that's one problem. And one reason I didn't get much sleep is that at about three-thirty in the morning I got caught in a mental loop of analysis, hate, and recrimination, which has not yet fully passed (although it has subsided - if I'd gotten up in the middle of the night and written this, you'd have a much darker entry).
It's mostly a crisis of content - me being unhappy with the words I've written lately and the reactions I've received to them. Oddly enough, the old "I can't write" chestnut is nowhere to be seen. It's a long and complex story, but basically it comes in three parts: Sexual obsession, unknown desires, and an edgy audience.
The last shall be first. I'll explain the other two later today; they require entries unto themselves.
I am not a very nice person, but I thought that I had managed to accumulate a small group of people who would tolerate my rantings and ravings and continue to chat with me anyway. I feel that, in recent days, I am wearing out my welcome with that small group of people.
mouth organ has exacerbated this. I like the new format and people are apparently willing to read it, but the discussions have lost their friendliness - or maybe it's just me being paranoid. Although I'm writing the same positions and viewpoints, in the same style I always did, it's as if the gloves are off now - the game has become nastier. And I don't know what I did to make it that way!
It's minor differences - people who would normally say pleasantly, "I think you're wrong on this one, here's why ..." are saying, "Come on now, get real ..." instead.
I don't know. I just feel like my mailbag is colder and harsher. Some of it may be that the mailbag has been fairly empty ever since Christmas - well, that's understandable, and the mailbag goes through empty cycles anyway. But given that I also haven't been able to read journals in anything like a regular fashion for two months, I feel - I don't know - if there is a journalling community, then I'm fairly disconnected from it right now. That's not a good feeling.
And, of course, I'm cranky a lot right now. Having a massive project at work with an iron deadline that I'd really rather do anything else but work on does tend to have that effect on me.
So maybe some of this coldness is a reflection of my omnipresent bad mood. Maybe some of it is due to causes I haven't traced yet. And maybe, just maybe, it's all my imagination.
Anyway, if the problem is real and you're avoiding me because you've encountered the black spot in my personality, I'll tell you what I tell Nonelvis from time to time: I have never made it a secret. You can't say I didn't warn you I was a b**ch.
© Columbine
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