Just What is a Blog?
So I’m sitting in the local pub, trying to avoid what I’ve dubbed “Saw Fest ‘05″ - all four sides of my apartment polluted with the grating whine of the Sunday 9-5er’s power tools as they fix up their $300,000 Toronto dumps. I usually have a bite during this exodus and read NOW [A local Toronto free paper].
This article kind of annoyed me with it’s soap-box free-speech rant. In particular the second line after a pointed reference to a Simpsons episode of all things;
“Every ass with a computer thinks his blog or cyberspace rambling warrants public attention.”
I’m a little fatigued that techno-geeks who think that the internet was “theirs” to begin with and now that it’s over-run by “asses“; no longer the merry little wank-ground for their own personal circle-jerk. Blogs by their very nature, are public. Whether they warrant attention or not, is immaterial. The problem is that the media [I know, I know... ] feels that because of a few news-related or journalistic blogs by writers of note, the blog becomes perceived as some kind of important social forum. That blogs even need to have any social merit, is completely ludicrous to me. They can, but don’t necessarily have to.
Let’s just pull some definitions of what a blog really is from the web shall we? [from Google].
“a public web site where users post informal journals of their thoughts, comments, and philosophies, updated frequently and normally reflecting the views of the blog’s creator.”
“An online journal or diary that is frequently updated…”
Nowhere can I find a definition for “blog” or “weblog” that requires the “blogger” to use his forum for anything more than a space for personal expression.
From the article:
“We are in the throes of a revolutionary change in mass communications, and it will take some time to purify the medium.”
Bold statement! Who is this writer? Cyber-Hitler? Purify the medium? This sounds like the type of elitist nonsense that would come from some snot-nosed hacker crying about the injustices of his beloved internet from the cozy confines of his mother’s basement.
The rest of this article is hung on some bomb-making scam and really has nothing to do with blogs at all. It has more to do with spam and the Supreme Court’s ruling over some greedy pinhead selling the secrets of destruction to the rest of the swinish multitude. Hey, the internet was built by greedy pinheads selling destructive bullshit to the public! Ever hear of cigarettes? McDonalds? Porn? Welcome to Capitalism.
I know this is supposed to be a pro-free speech article, but I couldn’t tell if the article was really pro-free speech or was about wiping out anyone with a keyboard that didn’t use it for it’s “intended” purpose. Whatever that is…
Anyway, I’ve wasted enough of my night with this entry.
In conclusion, I don’t really care who reads this blog. I use it simply to puke up shit I despise, post things I find humorous or try to make my friends laugh.
By the way, I have the shits from the burger I ate. I’ve had a couple of drinks and I’m listening to Nick Cave. The United States sucks! In fact, so does Canada! Let’s all live in Europe! They get tits in the Sun and smoke dope in coffee houses! Life is unfair! I just used this rant to post a narcissistic picture of myself! Fuck you all! This is my blog!
If you want to call me an “ass” for it, it wouldn’t be the first time.