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captainsblogIt's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great.
-- Rockford Peaches manager Jimmy Duggan, giving his own interpretation of the meaning of life.
----
Thank you for that lovely anthem, and now Reverend Ray is going to turn and preach to the choir for a bit. Because if you're reading this, you probably understand what I'm going to be talking about, far more than those who aren't reading it.
I've now been immersed in the strange and wondrous world of Facebook for two whole days. I'm finding it a far more alien land than I ever did LJ, AOL or even the Buffalo Freenet back in those early days of internetting almost 15 years ago. Everything is clipped, instantaneous and irreversible. If you want to refine a status or a comment, your only choice is to delete it and start over.
----
Here's a status I just wrote there:
[my name]is checking out just how far a status can go in terms of words, characters, whatever. I'm writing a blog post right now on the "Short Attention
Span Theater" model that this place seems to be based on- and about how much goes missing in content, and connections, when you're limited by format to a paragraph, at most, about what's going on in your life. Okay, two paragraphs. Maybe it is unlimited. No, it ends right he
419 characters, or so says Word when I paste it in. That's not much beyond what I had for breakfast, or what band I saw last night, or how frustrating it is to be stuck with two court appearances six hours apart with not-all much to do. I can do better. I do do better, and that's why I'm going to be one of the last ones standing when it comes to journaling as forms of expression, catharsis, and even, on a good day maybe?, art.
----
Q: How many ADD kids does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Let's ride bikes!
I can't say I'm surprised that this shortening is becoming the way we are. I was only slightly ahead of the changing of the guard on that count, which I think I can trace back to Sesame Street. That was the medium which did a lot of good in terms of teaching skills, but created a massive change in the way those skills were taught. The two-minute segment became the standard. Anything else caused boredom, inattention, distraction. Technology has embraced and spread this trend, from the MTV-ification of entertainment programming, to the hurry-up paces of modern sporting events, to the ten-minute Youtube being about the longest anyone will wait through (and likely can even upload even if somebody wanted to show more).
This week's Big Deal Movie Premiere illustrates another side of it. Here, we've had this film completed, in the can, ready to be shown for a year if not longer, and the studio not only holds us back from seeing it for literally months just to catch a bigger-buck opening weekend, it expects us to stay up until midnight to see it at the first possible second after making us wait so damn long. Nobody thinks there's anything wrong with this, as long as [insert the object of their fanning here] is in the movie and comes out all dreamy.
Me? I still prefer baseball, the lowest-tech sport there is. I wait to see movies when I want to, and/or when my family and I can. And I still prefer the extended rant to 419 characters of compression.
----
I've been Facebook-friended by many who do, and a few who did, post their more extended thoughts here. Among those who I've seen, clearly many (and at least one by outright admission) have made these "statuses" (or the corresponding Tweets on That Other Thing) a partial or full replacement for the journal entries I came to know and admire them by. My LJ Flist has a variety of people, places, occupations, avocations and ages, but every one them who I follow here, without exception, is a good and thoughtful writer. And that's saying something in an era where people increasingly can't string 419 characters together if their life depended on it.
I miss those words, where they're missing. I appreciate and treasure them all the more when they are shared- whether in the form of your own entries, or through your comments on yours, or mine, or somebody's.
Statuses and walls are much harder to follow, even for what is there. There's far more automatic clutter that breaks the flow of work-as-a-whole. On my second day, I figured out how to add a few items to my profile, one of them being the fact that I'm married, and my Wall instantly updated with the following:
♥ Ray is now married. · Comment · Like
As if it just happened now, not close to 22 years ago.
Ah, and then there are those "like" things. The me-too-ification of the internet, which didn't show up here first but is certainly being hastened into ubiquity by an app this big and important. It doesn't challenge the brain cells if you can just click a button to state your agreement with, or appreciation for, something that's posted. If not used enough, those cells rot, and will eventually die, if you don't use them. Even a "that was funny!" reply uses a little bit of effort, but it seems we don't have time for that, anymore.
----
So it is with that, I end this 2,500th post with appreciation for everyone I've met, and connected with, and still find dear and talented even if you're keeping your thoughts to 419 characters at a time. I promise that 2,501 will be the first of many more, and with the kind of attention, thoughtfulness and irreverence that has marked most of those preceding it.
Not that I won't use Facebook, or even get into it for what it is. In fact, here: have a LOLCAT I just put up on an old friend's wall:
-- Rockford Peaches manager Jimmy Duggan, giving his own interpretation of the meaning of life.
----
Thank you for that lovely anthem, and now Reverend Ray is going to turn and preach to the choir for a bit. Because if you're reading this, you probably understand what I'm going to be talking about, far more than those who aren't reading it.
I've now been immersed in the strange and wondrous world of Facebook for two whole days. I'm finding it a far more alien land than I ever did LJ, AOL or even the Buffalo Freenet back in those early days of internetting almost 15 years ago. Everything is clipped, instantaneous and irreversible. If you want to refine a status or a comment, your only choice is to delete it and start over.
----
Here's a status I just wrote there:
[my name]is checking out just how far a status can go in terms of words, characters, whatever. I'm writing a blog post right now on the "Short Attention
Span Theater" model that this place seems to be based on- and about how much goes missing in content, and connections, when you're limited by format to a paragraph, at most, about what's going on in your life. Okay, two paragraphs. Maybe it is unlimited. No, it ends right he
419 characters, or so says Word when I paste it in. That's not much beyond what I had for breakfast, or what band I saw last night, or how frustrating it is to be stuck with two court appearances six hours apart with not-all much to do. I can do better. I do do better, and that's why I'm going to be one of the last ones standing when it comes to journaling as forms of expression, catharsis, and even, on a good day maybe?, art.
----
Q: How many ADD kids does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Let's ride bikes!
I can't say I'm surprised that this shortening is becoming the way we are. I was only slightly ahead of the changing of the guard on that count, which I think I can trace back to Sesame Street. That was the medium which did a lot of good in terms of teaching skills, but created a massive change in the way those skills were taught. The two-minute segment became the standard. Anything else caused boredom, inattention, distraction. Technology has embraced and spread this trend, from the MTV-ification of entertainment programming, to the hurry-up paces of modern sporting events, to the ten-minute Youtube being about the longest anyone will wait through (and likely can even upload even if somebody wanted to show more).
This week's Big Deal Movie Premiere illustrates another side of it. Here, we've had this film completed, in the can, ready to be shown for a year if not longer, and the studio not only holds us back from seeing it for literally months just to catch a bigger-buck opening weekend, it expects us to stay up until midnight to see it at the first possible second after making us wait so damn long. Nobody thinks there's anything wrong with this, as long as [insert the object of their fanning here] is in the movie and comes out all dreamy.
Me? I still prefer baseball, the lowest-tech sport there is. I wait to see movies when I want to, and/or when my family and I can. And I still prefer the extended rant to 419 characters of compression.
----
I've been Facebook-friended by many who do, and a few who did, post their more extended thoughts here. Among those who I've seen, clearly many (and at least one by outright admission) have made these "statuses" (or the corresponding Tweets on That Other Thing) a partial or full replacement for the journal entries I came to know and admire them by. My LJ Flist has a variety of people, places, occupations, avocations and ages, but every one them who I follow here, without exception, is a good and thoughtful writer. And that's saying something in an era where people increasingly can't string 419 characters together if their life depended on it.
I miss those words, where they're missing. I appreciate and treasure them all the more when they are shared- whether in the form of your own entries, or through your comments on yours, or mine, or somebody's.
Statuses and walls are much harder to follow, even for what is there. There's far more automatic clutter that breaks the flow of work-as-a-whole. On my second day, I figured out how to add a few items to my profile, one of them being the fact that I'm married, and my Wall instantly updated with the following:
♥ Ray is now married. · Comment · Like
As if it just happened now, not close to 22 years ago.
Ah, and then there are those "like" things. The me-too-ification of the internet, which didn't show up here first but is certainly being hastened into ubiquity by an app this big and important. It doesn't challenge the brain cells if you can just click a button to state your agreement with, or appreciation for, something that's posted. If not used enough, those cells rot, and will eventually die, if you don't use them. Even a "that was funny!" reply uses a little bit of effort, but it seems we don't have time for that, anymore.
----
So it is with that, I end this 2,500th post with appreciation for everyone I've met, and connected with, and still find dear and talented even if you're keeping your thoughts to 419 characters at a time. I promise that 2,501 will be the first of many more, and with the kind of attention, thoughtfulness and irreverence that has marked most of those preceding it.
Not that I won't use Facebook, or even get into it for what it is. In fact, here: have a LOLCAT I just put up on an old friend's wall:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-16 03:04 pm (UTC)When my mom first got Facebook, she listed herself as "married," but then noticed that her friends didn't have their relationship status listed, so she took it out... and everyone got a message on their news feed saying she was no longer listed as married. *facepalm*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-16 03:15 pm (UTC)It's not on my list, which means either I never sent it, or you declined it (which is fine, you're not one of the disappearing acts I'm kvetching about in this).
no subject
Date: 2009-07-16 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-16 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-17 01:27 am (UTC)Like you I mourn the brevity of things like FB and Twitter. I'll be the first one to admit that I am capable of knocking off a quick LJ update, but more likely than not I'll put some time and editing into it. And yeah, I have noticed a lot of people posting a lot less here. Some are not missed, but some truly are.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 02:06 am (UTC):)