Thursday, December 8, 2011

the worm you're-a-bore-to-us

Hello there. I'm sure if you're reading this, you know that I've blogged before, with mixed results, and various degrees of apathy blending like so many Benday Dots into rage, largely due to the reality that blogging (serious blogging, the sort of blogging that doesn't feature @stephenfrys in it) is much like pissing into the wind and then realizing it's an unusually placid day. I only seem to endeavour upon things for the deliberate purpose of gaining recognition for doing them, and since I am neither attractive nor wealthy, cranking out wordage in a flail for attention seems to be the best I can do. Were I attractive, you'd be interested in my thoughts regardless of their value, and were I wealthy, I'd tell you you're interested in my thoughts and you'd be duly enraptured by your desire to be as wealthy as I.

And thus it begins: a sort of crawl to focus, begging you to take the barest effort to recognize that I am alive, that I exist, that I am alive and exist in the same subdemesne of reality as you, and that I'd like you to cut to the chase, stop acting like a dick, and pay attention to me, God Damn It. But I know you won't, so I'll just smile and pretend, as this thing called the Internet grinds ever so nominally forward. I am less than shit to you, Y'Worship. I am here, a'singin' and a'dancin', and you can happily choose to click away. And there's not a goddamn thing I can do to stop you.

But where will you be going? If you're like me, you really only care about less than five sites, one of them is Facebook, and the other is Youtube. You might care about Twitter (I've since stopped). Of the remaining three, one is your pornography site of preference (I judge not), one is probably your aggregator of preference (POETV is mine) and the fifth is the real stickler. The fifth, well, that's your barometer site, isn't it?

- It could be a news site, likely of the political faction of your choice, thus minimizing the fretsome seconds worrying about whether or not the site you're reading will lie to you about your political bogey of choice. This is probably the most likely.

- If it's a site that will tell you about how much money you currently have right now, stop. Immediately. Click away and never return. I will not frot you here.

- Sports? Do they still have those?

- It could be one of those growling forums that you can hide within behind a mask of feigned anonymity (until somebody steals your joke, and then you must claim it). To be fair, most of the time, this option doubles as the porn site, so you're free to consider this one fifth-point-five if you like.

- It could be eBay. If so, you are probably a candidate for "Hoarders". It could be WebMD. If so, you are probably a candidate for electroshock therapy and a padded cell.

Whatever your fifth is, it's kind of your internet rorshach test. I don't particularly care to hear about it. We don't count Google, obviously.

It seems to me that we have made this thing we hive on a little too close to our collective mental apparati: it's too fast and too gracious in satisfying our monstrous egos. We no longer have to challenge ourselves by finding the things we want to read about somewhere in the newspaper or in the card catalogue, we just type them into the Googlebocks, and up it comes. We no longer have to risk the possibility of accidentally finding something we don't care to read but would be useful anyway. On the hunt for Mad Magazine, for instance, we no longer accidentally stumble across Lord of the Rings. And, thus, we are lessened. And, thus, you think me an incalculable nerd for choosing those two examples.

So, I'll do this, and I'll rant from time to time. I'll philosophize about things that hassle me and bother me. I'll praise things when praise is due. But, and I promise you this, The Nobody Who Has Made It This Far, I'll pull no punches. I've decided to be honest in my churl.

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