Oh, Internet
It sounds ridiculous – and more than a little pretentious – to talk about blog journalism actually making someone depressed, but between the Marie Claire “Fat people make me nauseous” blog post and Gawker’s appalling “My one night stand with Christine O’Donnell except we never had sex and I’m anonymous and ewww pubes” post, I’m just… sad. David Brothers said it best on Twitter earlier today:
Yeah. I’ve been in a capital M Mood for a week or so, and this is just a kick applied directly to my junk. This is what they want?
It depresses me that both posts gets shitloads of views, rewarding the sites for running them. It depresses me that the anonymous idiot who’s trading on a potentially entirely fictional story about his non-existent one night stand with a political figure will have been paid a ridiculous amount of money for his story (“low four figures,” apparently), and that that’ll be held up as an example of “good journalism” by Gawker at some point, just as the iPhone story was (Oh, alright; it’s held up as “brilliant packaging“). It depresses me that “This is what they want” can get applied to both the audience and the people providing the content equally, as well, because controversy = hits = success. And, as someone who works in blog journalism, as crazy and uneven and lazy and everything as it may be, the fact that that one fact remains King when it comes to all professional blogging is just… depressing. Mumble, gripe, moan, repeat.
*GASP*
It’s been the longest time, again, since I’ve posted. In my defense, people have been visiting and I’ve been in LA for work – And, really, how ridiculous is that sentence? At times, I still stop and wonder to myself what the hell happened that I have a job where people I don’t know will pay for me to fly to LA and interview folk – and, in the words of that Scott Pilgrim blurb, things keep happening. This potentially makes me a bad blogger, but I prefer to think that it gives all of you dear readers a look into the lives of my friends by letting you know what it’s like when I just disappear for weeks because I’m so busy and then reappear, (the opposite of) refreshed and wanting to know what’s going on. So, you know: How’ve you been?
Is This The Laziest Spam Ever Sent?
Our survey says, “Probably.”
You Said You Would, You Said You Could
There’s no other way of saying this: “Yes,” by David McAlmont and Bernard Butler, is a fuck you song, way before Cee-Lo thought of actually just calling a song “Fuck You.” It’s a wonderful fuck you song, though, one that’s full of whatever the name of the emotion is when you’re passed anger and into living well as the best revenge, mixed with just a little spice of bitterness and regret and wanting to see others uncomfortable with your survival. more »
Dreams, They Complicate My Life, Part 24
I’m always thrown when I have dreams that star people that I don’t really know that well. Not dreams with celebrities, because who doesn’t have dreams that occasionally guest-star a celebrity or two, popping up as the representation of some subconscious idea or whatever? But, no; I’m talking about dreams that will star people that I’ve met a couple of times, but don’t really know – friends of friends, neighbors, chance meetings or whatever. For some reason, this happens to me all the time; I think my subconscious brain casts around for someone for a particular role and then grabs whoever’s available, often based on my first, limited impressions. Some make sense – there’s a guy that lives locally who’s appeared more than once as a random scuzzy dude, all sleaze and untrustworthiness, and considering I once caught him rifling through our recycling looking for bottles to recycle, I have no problem with that – but some just confuse: What makes someone a spy in my head? Why does someone I don’t know make an appearance telling me some important truth that explains it all? and so on.
Everytime I have one of these dreams, I feel a little guilty afterwards, like I’ve stolen them without their permission, and imprinted them with whatever my sleepy brain deemed necessary at the time. Shouldn’t I be able to come up with someone original and new, I always wonder, and then smile at the thought of people I only kind of know working for the dream world’s version of UNCLE or SMERSH.
Where Does The Money Go?
I’m unsure whether the figures are actually real or just placeholders, but I am fascinated by this breakdown of where federal tax money goes. I had no idea, genuinely, that so much went to NASA (I mean, it’s not actually a lot, but it’s a lot more than I’d expected), or that I was paying for Amtrak or the Smithsonian Museum. It’s like I’m paying for Bones!
The New DC: There’s No Stopping Us Now!
(Last of the catching-up essays from the Comix Experience newsletter. Next week: Less comic stuff, probably.)
The success of J. Michael Straczynski’s Wonder Woman revamp – #600 selling out, and mainstream news coverage that rivaled even President Obama’s appearance in Marvel’s Marvel Presidential Team-Up: Spider-Man And Obama Against The Inherent Problems Passing A Healthcare Reform Bill In A Nation That Perceives Healthcare For All To Be Less A Basic Humane (And Note That “e” At The End, Those Likely To Get Upset, Please) Right And More The First Step In An Apparently Short Walk Towards Becoming Communist Russia (A long title, sure, but who didn’t plotz over that double-page spread of Obama lifting the hopes of an entire nation on his shoulders while Spidey simultaneously wisecracked and got punched by Glenn Beck inside a revamped Spider-Slayer?) – proved once and for all the value of cosmetic changes and an impossibly slow news day.
It’s a message that’s not gone unnoticed in the New York offices of DC Entertainment; our sources tell us that, as soon as USA Today ran a story about how shocked they were that Wonder Woman would even think of accessorizing with a jacket so clearly from the early 1990s, DC co-publisher Dan Didio was writing emails to everyone he possibly could, demanding that this kind of “heat” be repeated across the entire DC line. As a result, Brightest Day‘s originally planned ending – wherein Deadman discovered that, oh irony of ironies, he was to become Liveman and spend eternity flying around, reminding people how great it was to be alive while chopping off the arms of badguys who disagreed – was immediately tossed in favor of a whole slew of character reboots designed to confuse continuity and add an interesting new fashion-friendly slant to some of the DC’s most beloved characters. Join us now, as we tour the DC World That’s Coming! more »