That Sinking Feeling
Whenever I feel like perking myself up, I go to Technorati to see exactly how much credibility I don't have in the blogosphere:
Every time I do, my ranking is significantly lower than ever before. It's actually quite fun to track and happens to be a great way of documenting my headlong belly-flop into the depths of web obscurity.
As if it's not enough that my rank is in the multi-millions, Technorati's phrasing couldn't be any more insensitive:
"No blogs link here"
"Favorited by: 0 members"
Come on, where's the love? Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to put in logic which inserts the word "sorry" at the end of such raw proclamations.*
Don't get me wrong, though; I actually find this quite nice. Always preferred a small number of close comrades to a large number of acquaintances, me. In the Web 2.0 world of social networking, blogging, digging, and ranking, meaningful connections seem lost in a sea of hit hungry hippos.
No longer does one have to physically hang out with a person, much less be able to carry on a thoughtful conversation with them, to become their friend. All it takes is some reciprocal linking and Bob's your uncle! Or your Friendster.
The passable use of apostrophes and possessive nouns has also become a mere luxury and quality content often means whatever happens to be the weirdest, grossest, or most shocking utterance of the day. It's an acceleration of the dishonorable decline of journalism into the pursuit of "eyeballs" instead of truth.
In this maelstrom of transitory superficiality, I take comfort in the few regular visitors to my dusty museum of oddities. Whatever brings you here - familial obligation, a shared sense of disillusionment, a taste for morbidity, or just plain derangement - I thank you for reminding me of where to find humanity in the coldness of cyberspace. If there were millions more of you, I might just feel far lonelier.
*A peculiar habit I picked up in the UK is to pepper my conversations liberally with apology. "Sorry, I didn't get that..." or "Terribly sorry, but your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries." Whilst hardly a guaranteed indication of regret, it does serve as a mark of civility so lacking in society today, much like the bow before the duel (where someone's going to die and the other person's going to be sorry). I can now say with absolute confidence that I am a sorrier person today than I ever was.
Every time I do, my ranking is significantly lower than ever before. It's actually quite fun to track and happens to be a great way of documenting my headlong belly-flop into the depths of web obscurity.As if it's not enough that my rank is in the multi-millions, Technorati's phrasing couldn't be any more insensitive:
"No blogs link here"
"Favorited by: 0 members"
Come on, where's the love? Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to put in logic which inserts the word "sorry" at the end of such raw proclamations.*
Don't get me wrong, though; I actually find this quite nice. Always preferred a small number of close comrades to a large number of acquaintances, me. In the Web 2.0 world of social networking, blogging, digging, and ranking, meaningful connections seem lost in a sea of hit hungry hippos.
No longer does one have to physically hang out with a person, much less be able to carry on a thoughtful conversation with them, to become their friend. All it takes is some reciprocal linking and Bob's your uncle! Or your Friendster.
The passable use of apostrophes and possessive nouns has also become a mere luxury and quality content often means whatever happens to be the weirdest, grossest, or most shocking utterance of the day. It's an acceleration of the dishonorable decline of journalism into the pursuit of "eyeballs" instead of truth.
In this maelstrom of transitory superficiality, I take comfort in the few regular visitors to my dusty museum of oddities. Whatever brings you here - familial obligation, a shared sense of disillusionment, a taste for morbidity, or just plain derangement - I thank you for reminding me of where to find humanity in the coldness of cyberspace. If there were millions more of you, I might just feel far lonelier.
*A peculiar habit I picked up in the UK is to pepper my conversations liberally with apology. "Sorry, I didn't get that..." or "Terribly sorry, but your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries." Whilst hardly a guaranteed indication of regret, it does serve as a mark of civility so lacking in society today, much like the bow before the duel (where someone's going to die and the other person's going to be sorry). I can now say with absolute confidence that I am a sorrier person today than I ever was.
posted by Little Green Potato at 7:01 PM
2 Comments:
Plain derangement for me, every time.
dillusionment and morbidity, and a bit of what's hidden behind door number 5 - sheer used-to-share-a-"dorm"-cubicle hillarity.
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