Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Chicagoland / Media That's Not Writing, It's Typing
Posted by Whet Moser on 11.09.10 at 01:42 PM
You're no rock n' roll fun
like a party that's over
before it's begun
Jim DeRogatis takes a swipe at solipsism, self-indulgence, and navel-gazing, inspired by... wait for it... Jack Kerouac! Naturally, it's all the Internet's fault.
Reading those words, I can’t help wondering what Kerouac would have thought of this new age of boundless self-promotion and banal solipsism, as typified by the endless proliferation of Tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts that pretty much say absolutely nothing beyond “Hey, look at me!”
It's a leading question, but he'd probably think the same thing I think when I read Kerouac—like "that time I spent reading Dharma Bums is time I'll never get back" or "the only thing more insufferable than someone telling you about a dream they had is someone telling you about a bender." YMMV; if we're cherry-picking midcentury American writers, I'd be more interested in what William Gaddis thought. (Meanwhile, someone at @WBEZ is busy Twittering DeRo's content, which is so beneath him; the business of actually getting people to read published content being for the little people.)
Kerouac, of course, was a prolific letter-writer:
The letters from the ’40s were often philosophical and meandering. From the ’50s onward, they wrote about their discovery of Buddhism, their frustration with potential publishers and the downside of fame. But whenever they wrote, they were sure to update travel plans and the status of friends and fellow artists — William Burroughs (author of “Naked Lunch”), poet Gregory Corso and Neal Cassady (who eventually joined Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters), among others.
So maybe he would have taken to publicly sharing his interstitial thoughts:
No, I was kidding about 1943 biog.—also about Nixon—making old argumentative scenes on couch, see—tell them. I not goin vote but would for Kennedy—everybody should simply make a vow of kindness and let it go at that, try to stay sober too—start new party Vow of Kindness party.
Maybe on Facebook, where that would fit right in.
Public to DeRogatis and his Luddite fellows: you don't have to do Twitter or Facebook or blogging (and if you don't want to, don't do it, because you won't be good at it), but you do have to consider why other people would—including the people at your organizations who are tasked with doing so in order to reach an audience. (My grandfather was a pressman, so I tend to look askance at those who scoff at the means of production and distribution as they evolve.)
I hate empty, self-centered communiqués that say absolutely nothing at all. Pro tip: stop reading them, then. I'm always surprised, though I shouldn't be, that these plaintive wails never cite anything to make their point. Where are all these empty, self-centered communiqués? LiveJournal? MySpace? Maybe there's your problem. Try Rortybomb or something.
I think the main problem is the fallacy of nostalgia, which keeps many a writer busy with "is [insert here] dead?" think pieces. Every medium always seems worse than it used to be, because that which sucked ends up in the dustbin of history. Kerouac survives because he (allegedly) wrote great works; the insufferable logorrhea the Beats inspired biodegrades in niche bookstores because, sensibly, nobody reads it. The Web makes things worse only in the sense that it democratically preserves the crap alongside the genius. Even more so than libraries!
One more thing in defense of the Twitter and the blogs and whatnot: some people find them fine media in which to communicate. Those of us who are old Internet hands will probably recall instances of new sub-media perpetually giving either personal or public voice to those who had none in the old—chat rooms, IRC, newsgroups, MMORPGs, newsletters. Which is a tale as old as time, or at least as old as some of this century's media heroes, like the great self-publishers Bill James and I.F. Stone. Surely carbon paper and the Xerox machine created chaff—ever really lingered in the zine aisles at Quimby's?—but they also gave a forum to necessary underground voices.
So it's not just that DeRogatis premises his argument on a hoary cliche, and it is one, things moving very fast in Internet time. It's also snide, ahistorical, and anti-democratic, standing athwart history yelling "Shut up!" That's no rock 'n' roll fun.
Comments (14)
Showing 1-14 of 14
Small talk on Twitter (or Facebook or a blog) is like small talk at a party. Sure, it can be inane. But you have to start somewhere in a room full of people you don't know, and it can and does at times also lead to meaningful conversation and collaboration. Sometimes I think the people who hate on the "solipsism" of the Internet are the same ones you find standing in a corner alone at a party wondering why no one's talking to them. Maybe because they're too busy judging what everyone else is saying to actually connect with anyone?
like
dislike
@mikedoyleblogger -- yeah, my first impression of twitter was that it was like a cocktail party, and it hasn't gone away.
But if I didn't read Twitter, I'd miss gems like this...
http://twitter.com/JoeTheCop/status/141222…
Marinated grilled pork chops. Brussels sprouts w bacon & caramelized onion. Mashed potatoes. Bourbon. Autumn is here.
Great piece, Whet. While I share DeRogatis' exasperation with people's chronic over-sharing, his championing Kerouac as a voice *against* inanity is truly priceless. I'd love to see what Gaddis would have done with the proliferation of media devices and vehicles. I can imagine another "J R"-type take-down of the whole business.
I have no patience for the nostalgia either. In the end, we either have something to say or we don't and will use whatever means at our disposal to relate our messages. Yes, we have to wade through a lot of dross to find what's worthwhile, but I believe that's always been so.
I think you missed my point, Whet. I am not anti- Twitter, Facebook, or any other mode of communication per se.
I am anti-people not doing a damn thing worth reading with these new tools. So I agree with Kerouac when he urges people to to "enter [the] page" instead of wasting their (and our) time merely celebrating themselves.
But then what do I know? I love The Dharma Bums.
Jim DeRo
As far as Twitter goes, you could always follow those food trucks with the artisanal bacon.
I assume you won't be doing anymore promo spots for "Sound Opinions," then, Jim?
"I am anti-people not doing a damn thing worth reading with these new tools."
You must read the wrong blogs, then.
I read a lot of blog posts, Whet. (And Tweets, and Facebook updates.) I benefit from 1 in 10.
You're against a reader calling for more worthwhile writing to read? Now THAT seems Luddite.
"Ninety percent of everything is crud." -- Theodore Sturgeon
If Sturgeon is right -- and he is -- the formula for more good writing is more writing.
-- MrJM
Jim:
* Tweeting is weird--I think people either like it or they don't. I like it as an online communication outlet that's somewhere in between instant messaging and a cocktail party. You won't find much good writing, but there are some good jokes.
* Facebook is sort of designed to be narcissistic. 1 in 10 useful posts would be a good ratio. Good for baby pics, though.
* Blogs: kind of surprised you're not finding much of use there, though it depends on what subject you're looking for good stuff in. I've had great luck with econ, food, progressive politics, less with state and local gov (which makes sense, the pool gets smaller). I don't read a lot of music blogs, but a favorite in recent years (I think it's on hiatus) is "Gabe Said 'We're Into Movements," a wildly idiosyncratic hip-hop blog (that made the De Capo cut, IIRC; I think it was a music writer's side project to do the sort of weirdness that wouldn't make the cut at his day job).
"You're against a reader calling for more worthwhile writing to read? Now THAT seems Luddite."
No, not at all--but I do think the new tech has actually aided my search for worthwhile writing. Well, in a number of subjects at least; there are few where it hasn't, and I don't know whether it's because of a lack of good writing on the subject at all, or I haven't found it yet.
Twitter can be useful.
I was listening to a little discussion on Democracynow.org this morning about Britain's new austerity plan (bear with me), which basically gives tax cuts to corporations -- the bastards who led the country into its economic crisis -- while imposing huge new burdens on ordinary Brits, the already-hammered crisis victims. People in general were pissed.
Then it came out that Vodaphone, one of the country's big phone companies, was being granted some huge tax break (I didn't quite catch whether it was an outright break or forgiveness of previously unpaid taxes). People got more pissed. And then someone launched a Twitter campaign and organized crowds to shut down Vodaphone stores all over the country. It made a huge impression, at the least, and was widely perceived as a shot across the bow for the new conservative-led government.
Now THAT'S tweeting. It shows the potential. When we see similar action here, I'll abandon my skepticism about the stuff. Having said that, I'll also recommend Malcolm Gladwell's recent article in The New Yorker on the general thinness and ineffectiveness of online campaigns and organizing. As with much of his work, Gladwell makes some really telling points that others miss.
But, I think, it's possible to think beyond the scope of what Gladwell wrote about and see the potential for online campaigns, at some stage or under the right circumstances, to undergo a kind of phase change when properly directed or, perhaps, when the public attitude is ripe for action.
By the way, to those who think I'm a dickhead for suggesting that people have a right to stand up for their work and an obligation to do something at least potentially effective rather than just grumble about our hard lot, I'd merely point to this British campaign and the French riots and other places and times when people, quite reasonably, have taken real risks to assert themselves. I'm only surprised that the enormous potential of the internet hasn't been exploited more in these directions.
