Wherein the ‘author’ of this blog rambles aimlessly, whining about her life…

May 25th, 2010 by Brianna

…while listening to Pat Benatar. ‘Hell Is For Children’ make me cry every time, dammit…

So I disappeared again, real life exploded on me, blah, blah, blah. I could go on and on about why, or why not, but not only does nobody care, it wouldn’t even really be true. The truth is, I got a bit fed up with the Internet, blogging, everything computer-related (rather ironic for someone whose future career relies almost entirely on computers…). I burnt out without the excuse of having burning sufficiently beforehand.

About three months ago, I even made a blogging schedule – one day I was going to write about technology, one day politics, one day crosspost from Fourth Wave. It lasted for one day. Lovely. General weirdness/fights across teh interwebs only made things worse, first with a bunch of feminist blogs shutting down or going on hiatus (I know, I know…), and secondly the weirdness surrounding the lesbianish web-sphere (someday I’ll put all my feelings on Afterellen vs. Shewired vs. Autostraddle vs. the world down, but not now…)

I still haven’t completely gotten over it all, either, but I also miss writing rather badly. So here I am.
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‘Real’ Journalism and self-referencing

February 14th, 2009 by Brianna

I’ve been thinking about this comic strip for a while. What would happen if ‘real’ journalism disappeared? Not much. There would just be more money to pay news bloggers. Besides, ‘real’ journalists aren’t really real, after all. They’re just as fake as anyone else.

But the self-referencing thing really gets to me sometimes. Someone writes an article, perhaps announcing something, or reporting on something. Sometimes this is a blogger, sometimes it’s an online version of a newspaper, etc. Then, a bunch of people link it, and link it, and link it. For every original article, there’s ten or a hundred links. Now, on one level, this is simply how people find out about things. But it does seem a bit worthless at times to read the same article, with minor commentary, on ten sites!

And then there’s the clearinghouse sites. Slashdot for computer friendly people, Feministing for feminists (for the most part), etc, etc. Someone writes an article, a bunch of people link it, it gets popular, a clearinghouse site picks it up, even more people link it, ad infinitum.

Let’s reduce redundancy! Let’s link to whole sites and blogs as well as articles. And let’s only link to really interesting things, not to everything that moves. Less redundancy == more information consumed. (I don’t know who I think I’m talking too – the few people who read this probably don’t have the problem! It’s the people who run the big site that are really responsible. Oh, well)

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Blogs and Blogging: I’m behind the times again!

November 30th, 2008 by Brianna

I managed to fall of the face of the earth this week, but I have a good excuse – I’ve been building a USB mouse.

Don’t ask.

Anyway, today I ran across this article via autowin. Basically, the author of the article claims – half tongue-in-cheek – that blogs are dead. The popular ‘blogs’ are actually online magazines written by professional writers, and the individual blogger can’t compete. Nor would she want to – the popular blogs are too impersonal to satisfy the spirit of blogging. Instead, the author claims that the discerning wannabe writer should turn to Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter for an outlet.

Of course, he was promptly dismantled in the comments – but I think that all of those people missed the point.

Here’s the thing: I hate Twitter. I hate Flickr. And I fucking hate Facebook. (I’ve seen far too Facebook breakups, not to mention the general ‘friend obsession’ and overall waste of time). I despise all of those services.

But I’m glad that they exist.

I think that the author of the Wired article is absolutely right – blogging is dead for people who use it in the way that he’s describing. Blogging is not for personal communication! It fails miserably at that task! (Besides, we have Email and IM for personal communication) Blogging is a publishing technique, not a social network. To be sure, networks certainly develop around blogging, but the purpose of a blog is to publish information, not to make friends.

Back when blogs were the ‘next big thing’ I hated them, too. If you had something to say, I thought, you should say it on a static webpage! Blogs were for people who wanted to talk about the weather/a party/random personal stuff, post pictures of their cat, bitch mindlessly about their pitiful lives, tell everyone how cool they were, generally display their ignorance, or, most importantly, try and get more readers (aka friends) then the next person.

Guess where all of those people have gone?

Now that I have realized that blogging is a wonderful form of publishing, I glad that most of the self-involved attention seekers have moved on to another medium. It just means fewer distractions for those of us who actually have something to say.

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SheWired is finally here. It’s kind of a humbug.

October 31st, 2008 by Brianna

I was going to write about nothing but politics until the election – but I can’t seem come up with anything! I think I’m just burned out on politics (can’t we just vote already?). So instead, I’m going to bitch about the world of online professional lesbians!

SheWired.com launched this week, the new home of all things Jill Bennett and Cathy DeBueono, and… lesbian media destination? It’s like they’re trying to out afterellen afterellen, except all of the non-Jill content is cloned from LesbiaNation! Great idea, folks! (Not)

The site itself reminds me a bit of good old OurChart – it’s really nebulous and busy, but finding the actual content is a big chore. The one (potential) bright spot is the forum – since it’s new, and there is a pre-existing audience, maybe it will turn out to be interesting. (That’s the only problem with afterellen – the forums are really boring!)

Anyway, they tried, but I’m disappointed. When it was announced, I was under the impression that it was something that Cathy and Jill and some of Cathy’s friends (she named names at one point, I think) were putting together on their own. That would have been pretty cool. Instead, it’s an extension of here! network’s existing stuff – and the quality suffers as a result.

Oh, well.

An aside: Why, in the name of professional lesbians everywhere, doesn’t anyone give Tellofilms some love? It’s basically a lesbian youtube – they seem willing to foot the bill for hosting, and it’s easy to use, and fast (youtube clone, like I said) Afterellen and Shewired and TheSmokingCocktail and everyone else should put their stuff on there! (But that likely wouldn’t please the parent companies, now would it?)

Another aside: I just used a record number of parentheticals in this post, didn’t I? (Yes, yes, I did!)

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Links are the Internet

August 6th, 2008 by Brianna

I hate search engines.

Now, I don’t really mean that. Search engines are great for some things – looking up facts, for instance, or finding a site you already know exists. For anything else, they are essentially worthless.

Let’s say you like bald eagles. If you want to know, say, the wingspan of an average eagle, a search engine is the perfect tool for the job. A few keystrokes, one click, and you’ll probably find the answer. The reason? That information is available on many, many websites. Finding it is easy for the search engine.

The internet is a great way to find information. But most information is not unique to the internet. If you want to know about eagles, you could look in an encyclopedia, or in a book. The internet is simply faster.

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Essay sites

July 2nd, 2008 by Brianna

I love essays.

Yes, I realize this is weird and geeky of me. Essays are supposed to br those annoying things you have to write in English class. You turn them in, you get the grade, and you throw them away. Nobody is supposed to like essays.

But, what is an essay? The dictionary thinks that is a “…piece treating a subject from the author’s personal point of view.” So basically, it’s what you think about something. And really, who doesn’t have an opinion? I have an old book called Never at a loss for an opinion. As far as I can see, this describes almost everybody.

Just pick a subject, any subject. Dental Hygene? Bulldozers? Fly Fishing? It doesn’t matter. If the person in question knows anything about the subject at all, they’ll usually tell you all about it. Most will, anyway. A few people are wise enough to know when to keep quiet. Everyone else (and this includes me, by the way), will tell you what they think, and make fools out of themselves in the process.

I’m not sure that this is all bad, though. Sure, airing your stupid opinions on subjects you have no idea about is useless, but surely everyone has a few worthwhile thoughts. Thoughts that others would benefit from hearing. So, if you write these down, you’ll have an essay – and one that is worth reading. While you’re at it, why not put it on the Internet so anyone can read it?

Maybe this is what blogs are – a continuous essay of life. I don’t think so, though. Most blogs don’t have opinions, or arguments. They have information, often, news – sometimes, and lots of pointless rambling. now, back in the good olde days, pre-web 2.0, there used to be what might be called “essay site’s”. At least, that’s what I called them – I never saw anybody else use the term. But that’s what they were, websites full of essays. Coolest. Sites. Ever.

Unfortunately, most of them have shut down. The only one of my bookmarks that didn’t give a 404:

Curry Bucket’s Controversial Web Presence

It’s a pretty good example of what I’m talking about – but it’s also as dead as a doornail. Now the guy has a blog. (Which is not as cool – it’s all poetry)

And that was the problem with those sites. There really wasn’t any way to keep people checking the site day after day, like a blog, so the blogs won. But blogs don’t encourage the essay format at all. They are meant to be read soon after they’re written, and then disappear into the archive, never to be seen again. And who wants to read thorough endless archives to find a few dozen essay-quality posts.

So what’s the solution? An essay page. If you write something worth reading again, put it on a seperate page with a short summery of the post. That way you can use a blog, and people can find really good stuff without looking through endless archives.

The only page like this that I can think of is at the shakesville blog – they have
a feministing 101 page – basically an essay page. I’m sure there are others, but there need to be more. Every blog ought to have one.

Or maybe not. Maybe nobody really care what anybody else actually thinks. I know that I’d rather read an essay than see yet another picture of someone’s dog.

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