cali damage

 if there’s one thing i hate more than ‘finals are hard plus i was late to work because my cat got sick,omg my crazy life!’  blogs, it’s deep and philosophical blogs like this one:

 i definitely know the feeling of… the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment.but that’s life for you and everything happens for a reason.  and of course initial reactions may include frustration, bitterness, sadness, confusion, and disbelief– all of which are indications for you to put forth your time and energy into something that will directly reflect the effort. life is just not fair.  thats why you may cry yourself a river, build a bridge, then get over it or simply just continue to let the world go ’round.  things ideally works itself out.  and if not, you’re way better than the situation at hand so move on, move up, move ahead.
ok.   I’m not exerpting this from a larger story. That is the entire entry,  apropos of nothing. What strikes me the most is, despite being sincere and autobiographical, it manages to be more impersonal than an IRS brochure.What did this person even SAY?  It’s like, “Hey, great!  you totally used words!  That’s excellent how you put, like, adjectives and nouns together to form a sentance there!  Good job!”  Moreover, this is a UC BERKELEY student writing this, apparently.  As in, someone who must have gotten 1400 on their SAT tests.  So why would they write something so impersonal?

This is a classic problem:  people want to have their name and their picture all over their blogs. because then they can be, HEY LOOK AT ME!  I AM ON THE INTERNET WITH MY PEEPZ HOLLA WOO.  But the flip side to putting your big ego out there is, you can’t say anything bad about your family, because they might read it. ditto for your boyfriend or your boss.  So basically you can’t write anything interesting at all, and you wind up typing 1400-SAT score things like ‘life is just not fair.’  What happened to this person to make her sad?  It might be a very interesting story.  Maybe she got kidnapped by pirates.  Or got in a knife fight with Bo Diddley.  Or lost an air-guitar contest to a legless Eskimo playing air-ukelele.  But because she has her dumb pictures all over her page, she can’t afford to actually, like, tell a story, and instead all we get to read is that “Things ideally works itself out.” (sic) (take that, SATs!).

If it was just one sorority girl being dumb, that would not be cause for alarm or even surprise.  but there are like 4 trillion blogs with this problem, so I have to step in and solve it. 

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DO A BLOG, DON’T PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.  DON’T PUT YOUR DUMB SMILEY PICTURE EVEN IF IT’S ‘SUPER HOT SEXXXY WHOO!’ BE MYSTERIOUS.  USE ACTUAL IDEAS TO GET YOURSELF NOTICED.  if you keep your identity a secret, you can write some truly exciting and real stuff, like a spy behind enemy lines.  You can expose your boss, the dirty secrets of your workplace,  the embarassing shortcomings of your ethnic group, the hidden initiations of your fraternity, all your family’s dirty laundry, your lover’s treacherous ways! In other words, you can actually write stuff worth reading about. Yes, you’ll have to change names of real people/companies, and maybe details about them.  Yes, you’ll have to make up an imaginary city for all this to take place in.  That’s all part of the fun.

You might think this is negative.  And it is. But for a reason:  If I want to find out why Phi Delta Gamma IS FREAKIN’ AWESOME of a fraternity, i can find that information on their official site. if I want to see wny Dow Chemical is TOTALLY FREAKIN’ AWESOME and loves the environment, that info is also readily available.  But if i want to read the  DIRTY LAUNDRY(both personal and institutional) I can’t find it anywhere, even though it is 1000 times as fun AND real!  According to some douchebag at Wired magazine, Blogs are supposed to enable us to, through the Miracle Of Technology, expand our horizons and learn about new cultures or points of view.  And yet here is what we end up with:  “life is hard.”  “LuV MaH PeEpZ whaZZUPP~!”  Thanks a lot, you douche.  Have fun at burning man.  To the lame bloggers: having your friends’ pictures all over your blog is a sure-fire way to get compliments even if you suck, But it is only the whistle-blowers and shit-disturbers that can deliver the promise of blogs, and  let us know what REALLY goes on in other walks of life!

Now, what I am suggesting goes against human vanity so it’ll probably neverh appen. But just in case, though, let me say what i want to read when i read your blog:

1) stuff other people think is super-important but you think is bullshit, and vice-versa

2) things you feel ashamed of / times when you knowingly did something phoney / times when you feel like a total fraud
3) lies you told
4) revenge you got or want to get
5) actual experiences, not pithy sayings
6) people you feel jealous of and why
7) secret stuff that people who are not in your race/social class/sex/job would not ordinairly know about.
8) weird stories about that crazy uncle/ ex-roommate / cat lady next door
9) pet peeves, the randomer the better
10)  weird notions that your parents put in your head, that maybe you don’t agree with them but you catch yourself doing it anyway.
11) social rules you think are bullshit.
12) embarassing habits/obsessions. things you do excessively when you are sad.
13) critiques of the media/your school/social group, based not on what they portray but based on WHAT THEY LEAVE OUT (i.e. what is NOT DISCUSSED that should be).

14) get all anthropological on your mileu (i.e.  list the unwritten rules of your clique/religion/workplace, and the social pecking order) 

Whether you are a scientist working on quarks, or a Klansman with a fetish for teddy ruxpin, or a college girl who is wrestling with self-determination-vs.-sluttiness issues. . . this 14-point secret-spy-style blog program is garunteed to produce a fun/sad/real blog. If you know any blogs like this, leave a comment and let me know!  If you know anyone with a crap blog, email THEM a link to this, so that they can get pissed off and write me hate mail.

p.s.in case you’re curious, here are two blogs that actually do this.  STEREOLABRAT and BIGDEADPLACE. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, i hate it so much. . .!, web bullshit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 if there’s one thing i hate more than ‘finals are hard plus i was late to work because my cat got sick,omg my crazy life!’  blogs, it’s deep and philosophical blogs like this one:

 i definitely know the feeling of… the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment.but that’s life for you and everything happens for a reason.  and of course initial reactions may include frustration, bitterness, sadness, confusion, and disbelief– all of which are indications for you to put forth your time and energy into something that will directly reflect the effort. life is just not fair.  thats why you may cry yourself a river, build a bridge, then get over it or simply just continue to let the world go ’round.  things ideally works itself out.  and if not, you’re way better than the situation at hand so move on, move up, move ahead.
ok.   I’m not exerpting this from a larger story. That is the entire entry,  apropos of nothing. What strikes me the most is, despite being sincere and autobiographical, it manages to be more impersonal than an IRS brochure.What did this person even SAY?  It’s like, “Hey, great!  you totally used words!  That’s excellent how you put, like, adjectives and nouns together to form a sentance there!  Good job!”  Moreover, this is a UC BERKELEY student writing this, apparently.  As in, someone who must have gotten 1400 on their SAT tests.  So why would they write something so impersonal?

This is a classic problem:  people want to have their name and their picture all over their blogs. because then they can be, HEY LOOK AT ME!  I AM ON THE INTERNET WITH MY PEEPZ HOLLA WOO.  But the flip side to putting your big ego out there is, you can’t say anything bad about your family, because they might read it. ditto for your boyfriend or your boss.  So basically you can’t write anything interesting at all, and you wind up typing 1400-SAT score things like ‘life is just not fair.’  What happened to this person to make her sad?  It might be a very interesting story.  Maybe she got kidnapped by pirates.  Or got in a knife fight with Bo Diddley.  Or lost an air-guitar contest to a legless Eskimo playing air-ukelele.  But because she has her dumb pictures all over her page, she can’t afford to actually, like, tell a story, and instead all we get to read is that “Things ideally works itself out.” (sic) (take that, SATs!).

If it was just one sorority girl being dumb, that would not be cause for alarm or even surprise.  but there are like 4 trillion blogs with this problem, so I have to step in and solve it. 

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DO A BLOG, DON’T PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.  DON’T PUT YOUR DUMB SMILEY PICTURE EVEN IF IT’S ‘SUPER HOT SEXXXY WHOO!’ BE MYSTERIOUS.  USE ACTUAL IDEAS TO GET YOURSELF NOTICED.  if you keep your identity a secret, you can write some truly exciting and real stuff, like a spy behind enemy lines.  You can expose your boss, the dirty secrets of your workplace,  the embarassing shortcomings of your ethnic group, the hidden initiations of your fraternity, all your family’s dirty laundry, your lover’s treacherous ways! In other words, you can actually write stuff worth reading about. Yes, you’ll have to change names of real people/companies, and maybe details about them.  Yes, you’ll have to make up an imaginary city for all this to take place in.  That’s all part of the fun.

You might think this is negative.  And it is. But for a reason:  If I want to find out why Phi Delta Gamma IS FREAKIN’ AWESOME of a fraternity, i can find that information on their official site. if I want to see wny Dow Chemical is TOTALLY FREAKIN’ AWESOME and loves the environment, that info is also readily available.  But if i want to read the  DIRTY LAUNDRY(both personal and institutional) I can’t find it anywhere, even though it is 1000 times as fun AND real!  According to some douchebag at Wired magazine, Blogs are supposed to enable us to, through the Miracle Of Technology, expand our horizons and learn about new cultures or points of view.  And yet here is what we end up with:  “life is hard.”  “LuV MaH PeEpZ whaZZUPP~!”  Thanks a lot, you douche.  Have fun at burning man.  To the lame bloggers: having your friends’ pictures all over your blog is a sure-fire way to get compliments even if you suck, But it is only the whistle-blowers and shit-disturbers that can deliver the promise of blogs, and  let us know what REALLY goes on in other walks of life!

Now, what I am suggesting goes against human vanity so it’ll probably neverh appen. But just in case, though, let me say what i want to read when i read your blog:

1) stuff other people think is super-important but you think is bullshit, and vice-versa

2) things you feel ashamed of / times when you knowingly did something phoney / times when you feel like a total fraud
3) lies you told
4) revenge you got or want to get
5) actual experiences, not pithy sayings
6) people you feel jealous of and why
7) secret stuff that people who are not in your race/social class/sex/job would not ordinairly know about.
8) weird stories about that crazy uncle/ ex-roommate / cat lady next door
9) pet peeves, the randomer the better
10)  weird notions that your parents put in your head, that maybe you don’t agree with them but you catch yourself doing it anyway.
11) social rules you think are bullshit.
12) embarassing habits/obsessions. things you do excessively when you are sad.
13) critiques of the media/your school/social group, based not on what they portray but based on WHAT THEY LEAVE OUT (i.e. what is NOT DISCUSSED that should be).

14) get all anthropological on your mileu (i.e.  list the unwritten rules of your clique/religion/workplace, and the social pecking order) 

Whether you are a scientist working on quarks, or a Klansman with a fetish for teddy ruxpin, or a college girl who is wrestling with self-determination-vs.-sluttiness issues. . . this 14-point secret-spy-style blog program is garunteed to produce a fun/sad/real blog. If you know any blogs like this, leave a comment and let me know!  If you know anyone with a crap blog, email THEM a link to this, so that they can get pissed off and write me hate mail.

p.s.in case you’re curious, here are two blogs that actually do this.  STEREOLABRAT and BIGDEADPLACE. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, i hate it so much. . .!, web bullshit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.