I know, I know - what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than by idly trawling through my ex-husband's ex-lover's blog? Ah, the romance of it.
Still, I'm glad I did, because she posted a link to this article from the Windsor Star, in Canadialand, in which local author Michael Keren declares that blogging is 'melancholic and illusionary', and that 'the majority of [bloggers] remain in the dark, remain in the loneliness'.
Worth a read, not only for Professor Keren's Hardyesque cast of mind and whimsical use of pop cultural references to explain the fundamental sadness and alienation that lie at the heart of blogging, but also because if you screw up your eyes and peer through your fingers, it's a bit like reading an article from the Onion.
Happy Valentine's day, my fellow lonely, deluded outcasts. And remember: I am not real, and neither are you.
Fat Roland's blog: happy 20th birthday
2 days ago
29 comments:
The guy lives in Calgary, and he calls me lonely.
Yes, it had occurred to me that psychogeography might be informing his opinion somewhat, what?
It's all so true.
*Hides under desk, sobbing quietly*
"Some of us are going to be embraced by the mainstream media, but the majority of us remain in the dark, remain in the loneliness."
What about those of us who don't give a toss if the mainstream media embraces us or not, and are doing this for a laugh?
Well exactly.
Although I suspect your laughter would be a BARELY AUDIBLE WHIMPER IN THE DARKNESS, then some reference to a Beatles lyric.
I'd be highly offended if someone thought I was real.
Lonely? But we keep having blogmeets!
eqvoErm, am I the only blogger who does his best work in an open plan office.
... and that includes his best typos
I work in an open plan office - when Patroclus is in the UK, she fires rubber bands and shocking obscenities at me from her desk on the other side of the room.
It's all about managing expectations sayeth http://www.expat-at-large.com/pm/weblog.php
AIM: for the stars.
HOPE: to reach the trees.
EXPECT: to end up in the gutter.
"Many of us end up like Father McKenzie in the 'Eleanor Rigby' Beatles song, who is writing a sermon that no one is going to hear."
I love that they explained this reference so thoroughly. For the benefit of the one person on the planet who doesn't actually know the song I suppose.
Anyhow, I'm too melancholy and lonely to write more...
The best part of the story is the ending, where they quote a blogger at random and then quote him saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Because, you know, it's not like there are ANY other sociologists studying blogs, or blogging for that matter. Graveland knows; he's checked, of course.
I know I should be helping to change the world but I want to have a laugh, too.
I can't do both at once and besides, I changed the world when I was 13.
Valerie: I like the bit where the MySpace blogger says 'That's harsh,' because it was at that point that I actually had to check that I wasn't reading an Onion story.
Geoff: I'm on tenterhooks - what on earth did you do when you were 13? Does it have anything to do with the magnetic pole?
Do we really all belong to Generation Y? What a shit generation letter.
BiB, I think you and I are Gen-X. Douglas Coupland would know.
(Apparently, so would wikipedia.)
What happens after Generation Y? Generation Z? And then does it go back to the beginning, like hurricane letters...?
Generation ESCHATON, as the Shamen might once have sung about.
Ooh, I've gone all early 90s rave today. 'Avin' it, etc.
If you put Y + X together, don't you become generation DNA? Or does that require a Z?
Science was never my forte.
I knew there was a reason I did this. I just didn't know what it was. Oh fuck.
And a Canadian as well. The shame.
*loads a single round into a chamber*
spin - I think I may be that one person, I found the explanation necessary and illuminating...
So I'm not real? Thank fuck for that. I wonder what kind of idiot is making me up?
Yes, we are very much middle-of-the-range Generation X, according to that Wiki piece, but, look! Generation Y doesn't start till 1982, so all those tossers born in 1980 and 1981 aren't any generation at all. I've never liked the generationless. Wankers.
"Bloggers say university professors are a lonely bunch, unlikely to change the world"
Baby Boomer #2
I don't think that comma should be there.
LC: That is not a desk, it's an 'executive corner office'. I hope you aren't touching it while I'm away.
gvzaAs I was born in 1962, I'm a member of the Joneser generation, according to some marketing people in the US - we're wedged between the baby boomers and the generation X brigade. As the Goodies once sang - too old to be a teenager, too young to be a mother's pet, are we the inbetweenies everyone tries to forget...... Or was it the other way round? Anyway, it means that we missed out on baby boomer benefits and were too old for generation X benefits too.....
And yes, I agree with Canadian Man - and his problem is???
I'm going to lie down now. It's only another hour and a half before the school run.......
Strictly speaking, maybe some pre-bloggers are lonely, but you can never be lonely again once you enter the elite band (that I'm not in)
Ah, but did Professor Keren get any Valentines? I did, you know. Hard to read them in the dark, of course.
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