a restless native stirs the water to see what rises to the surface
Thursday, April 1, 2010
CULLING LANGUAGE
Lying around, rewarding myself with a well-deserved mid-week afternoon nap, as you do, when my rather odd brain decides I should be doing something more constructive. Like blogging! Because everybody wants to know what John Ellis is doing all of the time! Then I think, well, I tweet constantly, and I update my facebook status all the time, so what's really to blog about? Immediately I realise that condensing your observations on life into 140 characters IS the new blogging. Paragraphs and coherent sentence structure are out, passe, so last century. And as for narrative arc, well, ha. So, how about collecting all my recent tweets into one place and letting them tell the story of my recent excursions, instead of having to be bothered with, I dunno, the formalities of language? This paragraph alone is already redundant. In an age where kids text each other without using a single vowel or 'proper' spelling, hr's mi nu blg, composed entirely of this week's tweets. I think you'll agree, this is pretty sad. Ok, here goes. My week in tweets. Mi wk in twts.
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Remember, o tweeter, to whom you are talking.
ReplyDeleteBloggers.
Who like sentences and words with vowels.
But we will be nice to you.
Cos you are new.
Allie! Didn't you read that opening paragraph?!
ReplyDeleteDon't you think that tweets and FB updates are a little scant? a little lacking? like too little butter spread over too much toast? there's no meat, no substance, no actual anything? why do I care if you wiped your arse with one or two ply paper, if you're standing in a queue at Home Affairs... get on with your life and stop telling me kak!
ReplyDeleteBut like allie says, we are a different breed us Bloggers, something like a house cat is to a bengal tiger, not only bigger and better, but more majestic to boot! there is something about it that makes you think... I seem to spend inordinate amounts of time reading crap on facebook and still never really knowing what people are thinking, but blogs allow us exactly that, a meeting of minds rather than a spewing of "my week in bits making us look like tits"
It's the same reason you have video feeds, we can get into it.
and what about being able to respond, I hate being a consumer... picking and choosing what I see of others through, like you say 140 characters of condensation, having to make value judgements based on smoke and mirrors... a vouyer into other peoples lives without a means of being able (even if it's only one sided) to engage. commenting on a status update isn't engaging. If the internet is supposed to connect us more, why do I feel disconnected on facebook and twitter?
Tweets are easy. It's throw away stuff. next week I won't remember what you had for breakfast unless I'm a stalker, Jeez, I won't even remember tomorrow, but us bloggers know about the hard slog, the get your hands dirty kind of connecting. you don't just post and then forget, you post and come back. It's less selfish, less about only what you think and more about what the conversation yeilds, less about me and more about us.
anyway, this is me saying, Blog moer (spelling intended... ie moer that blog) even though you only have a sad four followers (is this the tech-age groupie? please say no, otherwise I'm going to have to kill myself), I'm keen to hear more.
Like Allie said, you're new. so we forgive you, but only this one time.
crap, I've just realised I sound like a raving lunatic (the previous comment is much longer than it felt like typing it...) sorry. feel free to fob me off (this random person in PE who you don't know who is looking and feeling a bit vouyeristic).
ReplyDelete