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I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

theawl.com

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Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#41
post #4

Related to his original idea: I think it's simply fantastic. Not only does it help avoid writers block (You constantly have a stream of stories to create), but it's forced practice. Nobody says Mozart's first few works were brilliant. It wasn't until he practiced for years that he became a virtuoso. An approach like this, while easy to view from the lens of simply making people happy, is an investment in one's creati…

You're either loved, hated, or ignored I'm curious what you'd suggest as an alternative. To have strong, passionate, but neutral, feelings about people?

In the little town where I did born, you're loved or hated. You can't be ignored in a little town.

I've noticed more and more about this, as I move across the world.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#42
I'm not claiming to have much fashion sense, but how is wearing giant plastic glasses "sincerity"? Is it about self-expression? What sentiment do huge glasses express?

The reaction, then, had nothing to do with hipsters... they hated me because I looked like I was nakedly desperate for attention, and had gone about that attention-grabbing by glomming on to marginalized trends.

I thought that was the whole reason people didn't like hipsters. Now I'm confused.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#44
It seems like the hipster-as-a-pejorative thing started around the total collapse of the music industry in the mid-2000's and unfortunately was driven by indie scenesters who resented the influx of popularity when say, Modest Mouse had a song appear on say, One Tree Hill. The primary aesthetic religion of the indie scene from punk onward, no matter what the genre or style, was D.I.Y. so suburbanites who went to Hot Topic to grab Iron Maiden t-shirts were profoundly reviled.

This happens in any insular subculture. Do I even need to mention the "geek girl" bullshit?

The problem has quickly become that this revulsion has also played into the jock-centric bullying of anyone who dares to be different--"my football coach won't let me grow my hair long so now let me go punch that faggot with the plastic frames" sort of crap. Any indie community that still exists needs to rid itself of all this baggage for that reason alone.

Whatever utility the word "hipster" had as a pejorative, if any, is gone. Internet killed pop culture and it's dead to stay. The most popular cartoon character now is effing Grumpy Cat. Anyone should consider anyone else using "hipster" as an offhand pejorative to be no greater than a classroom bully, no different than calling someone a dweeb in the 1980s.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#45

The website she referred to had a series of essays they dubbed “It Happened To Me” that they sprinkled in amongst feminist-leaning news and features. “I want to talk about how all of this makes me feel. You, all over the Internet, right after you dumped me.” Does that seem bizarrely self absorbed to anyone else?

That seems appropriate for a column called "it happened to me".

And wait, you're surprised a human, in media, is self absorbed? That seems bizarrely self absorbed.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#46
post #4

Related to his original idea: I think it's simply fantastic. Not only does it help avoid writers block (You constantly have a stream of stories to create), but it's forced practice. Nobody says Mozart's first few works were brilliant. It wasn't until he practiced for years that he became a virtuoso. An approach like this, while easy to view from the lens of simply making people happy, is an investment in one's creati…

You're either loved, hated, or ignored I'm curious what you'd suggest as an alternative. To have strong, passionate, but neutral, feelings about people?

How about strong passionate acceptance or tolerance? A resolute desire to give strangers the same consideration you hope to receive from people who don't know you.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#48

This was the best line for me during the argument between two Redditors: "you do realize things have value even if they're not digitized, right" Brilliant point and something that is sadly being lost in our evolving digital community. As a former Anthropologist, we are leaving less and less artifacts for those future civilizations to discover us by. At times, it's incredibly depressing to me this is the case. How wil…

>At times, it's incredibly depressing to me this is the case. How will people know about the human race if our entire culture is wrapped up in bits and bytes and discarded without a thought to their permanence? It will as though we never existed.

You may want to talk to Jason Scott or other Internet Archivers. (He mostly goes from physical to digital, but I'm sure this subject would interest him.) In the meantime have some links:

http://carlos.bueno.org/2010/09/paper-internet.html

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/3613

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#49
The front page of reddit can be a cruel mistress

My wife and I had one of our wedding pictures take the number one spot on /r/all one day -- There was some rather embarrassing text super-imposed on it that said "Oh you think married women still give BJs" (google Condescending Wife to find it).

Despite some of the comments in the thread being pretty mean, my wife and I took it in stride, we're both internet people, we get it; we thought it was pretty funny all things considered --

The awkward part of all of this though, was this picture was EVERYWHERE for about a day. All over Facebook, Tumblr, etc. So countless friends and family inevitably saw it. I got a call from my concerned father, asking me if everything was ok and if I had seen what the internet had been saying about me and my wife. I explained to him that we didn't really mind and we left it there as explaining reddit to him would have been near impossible. But it was just a really surreal experience. We got dozens of texts and emails that day all asking if we had seen the picture.

The best part of the the internet's short term memory is how quickly this image found it's way into obscurity; to be completely forgotten. No ill harm to my wife's nor my reputation.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#50
post #4

Related to his original idea: I think it's simply fantastic. Not only does it help avoid writers block (You constantly have a stream of stories to create), but it's forced practice. Nobody says Mozart's first few works were brilliant. It wasn't until he practiced for years that he became a virtuoso. An approach like this, while easy to view from the lens of simply making people happy, is an investment in one's creati…

"Nobody says Mozart's first few works were brilliant. It wasn't until he practiced for years that he became a virtuoso."

Are you trying to be ironic? Mozart's first work was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andante_in_C_for_Keyboard_%28Mo..., written when he was 5 years old.

Mozart's the canonical example of somebody who didn't have to practice for years. Obviously he did spend thousands of hours practising as he grew up, but that's a nuanced argument. You'd be much better choosing pretty much anybody else for your example.

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