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Tipping points of negativity

I almost never read the mainstream press. It’s a defensive gesture against the negativity, the constant carping about surface characteristics that never reaches beyond the shallow puddle of its readership to wonder why things are the way they are. I like to assume, though its sometimes a stretch, that people don’t really want to disconnect themselves from the world through such gross generalizations.

A while back, Mike Sanders uttered a Dickens-like plea:

Maybe we can create a Tipping Point of positivity. Maybe 150 bloggers who consistently recognize the virtues of other bloggers. Longer blogrolling list. More accolades. More cross-blogging. More thinking. More feeling. More laughing. More listening. More hearing. More emoting. More of whatever you want to do.

The cry for more is a pretty universal human thing. But then, reading a horrible oversimplification by John C. Dvorak reminded me that some people want less.

He gives away this point of view in his closing summation: “Whatever the reason for the Blog phenomenon, it’s not going to go away anytime soon. The main positive change: far fewer cat pictures!” How nice for you, to turn what you seem to see as a retched pool of writing into a positive thing. What really kills me is his musing on the motivations of people who blog:

• Ego gratification.

Some people need to be the center of attention. It makes them feel good about themselves to tell the world what important things they’ve been doing and what profound thoughts they’ve been having. Curiously, while this looks like the most obvious reason for a Web log, I think it’s probably the least likely reason, since it’s too trite and shallow.

Unless Mr. Dvorak hasn’t noticed, the web has no center. The majority of writers can’t begin to hope for an audience beyond a handful of people each day. Why should this reason be excluded for being trite and shallow, when he has already conceded that pictures of family and pets have long been established as common web content? Methinks he doth protest too much, from the bully pulpit of a mass circulation magazine where he is featured as a star ego.

• Antidepersonalization.

When people begin to think that they are nothing more than a cog in the wheel of society, they look for any way to differentiate themselves. The Web log proves they are different. Just read it. You’ll see.

If this is the case, why do relatively few blogs provide any sort of specific personal information? Why do they often seem to be carefully constructed fictions, alternate personalities? Why are memes and links so popular, where people ape content from other sites? I tend to think that the process of consubstantiation plays a much larger role than individuation. While the individuated blogs are usually the best, they are hardly in the majority. It is hard work to convey a sense of personality through writing alone.

• Elimination of frustration.

Day-to-day life, especially in the city, is wrought with frustration, and the Web log gives people the ability to complain to the world. You get to read a lot of complaining in these logs. If you think I’m a complainer, oh boy!

Complaining and/or confessing are big parts of all human discourse. Why single this aspect out? How about the desire for play, the desire to amuse through sharing the latest web diversions?

• Societal need to share.

As a cynic who gets paid to write, I have a hard time with this explanation. But it seems some people genuinely like to “share,” and this is one way.

Gosh, I feel sorry for you. You can’t figure out that people who don’t get paid still want to write? It must be that they really want to be “professional writers”

• Wanna-be writers.

A lot of people want to be published writers. Blogs make it happen without the hassle of getting someone else to do it or having to write well—although there is good writing to be found. Some is shockingly good. Most of it is miserable. I expect to see those Open Learning classes around the country offering courses in Blog writing.

I feel really sorry for this guy. There’s a human need to communicate, and a human need for more contact with their fellow humans. It completes us, and helps us become ourselves.

I remember one explanation I heard for the birth of the novel— it started as a form of gossip. That’s why the earliest forms are epistolary, composed from letters. One person telling stories and secrets to another. Then it evolved into more complex structures, built on the need to share stories with each other. To gossip, to share, not to gratify ego or earn a living. It’s just talking, in a global form. At least it seems that way to me. And I would like to see more of it, not less, myself.