ReBlogging.

I'm a complete amateur, at everything. Not least of which blogging, which I'm increasingly unsure about the entire point of blogging to begin with. Yes, it's short for web log, and in our desperate need to be clever, we've combined the words and shaved off the unnecessary letters that make it less clever. Great work everyone. High five (but only because that's the pop cultural equivalent of a back pat, or head nod, and since those are out dated, they can go get fucked).

That desperate need to be clever is an American phenomenon too btw (I was too lazy to "type by the way" btw...). No one else seems to engage in banter as self-consciously as does an American. I offer it merely as a curiosity I have come to recognize in my people, and the moment I meet another American, an onslaught of pop-cultural "pugilistic wit" erupts as surely as a knife fight between pimps.

Back to blogging.

WTF? Can I switch out W= what to W=why? I can do that right, without violating haphazard slapdash convention no one I know consulted on? Cool, WTF? I'm not a physicist, or a psychiatrist, or a [particularly good] writer, which places me firmly in the realm of "completely medicore guy", which is to say, I have nothing interesting to say, other than the point I am laboring to avoid. And I have to tell you, the people who get paid to blog don't really either. Most of the blogs I have seen that actually have something written either end suddenly, or never manage to get off the ground to begin with.

Blogging might well be a symptom of the "Narcissism Epidemic" that has swept America. Generations of children who were told they could be and do whatever they want, that they are special, unique, in all the universe. You're so fucking unique, you should start writing about your thoughts, and all the meaningless shit that happens to during the day. People really want to know more about you, and what you think, and what you do, you interesting motherfucker. That's cool. I mean, in a free and open society, I get to not read about you, if I don't want to. Maybe you are really interesting. I'll never know.

What is annoying the shit out of me lately are people who don't actually generate new content. This comes in the form of "reblogging", because in the modern English language you can simply put any prefix in front of any noun, and then convert that noun into a verb by adding - ing (a fact I tried many different times to teach to my Japanese students btw). My example is this picture right here. As soon as I posted it, someone grabbed it up, and posted it to their blog. Whoo hoo! But then, someone saw that post, and then they re-posted it, and re-posted from re-posts. The whole thing is really quite dizzying. I saw this, and I immediately thought, "jesus, this is how information used to get passed around word of mouth, only now you can do it with pictures, which are worth a thousand words, according to some schools of thought, but they (the blogger) just sits around like a fucking lazy one handed vulture (clever!) waiting for shit other people have posted, which in turn was something someone else created, but there is no value fucking added!"

There is NOTHING new in the attempt to elevate "having taste" to the level of having talent. Just as old is the phenomenon of complaining about critics. Critics actually produce something, even if that something isn't worth anyone's time. Re-posting / reblogging as the raison d'être (using foreign languages like french, latin, greek earn cleverness points according to professors btw. Strangely no one deigns to use Klingon phrases, which I have half a mind to rectify…) of your blog is just fucking pathetic though. Borrowed glory bitches are choking up servers all over this piece (antiquated urban vernacular is another avenue to much vaunted pop-cultural cleverness btw), and I have to come to terms with the fact that that is the new, next level ass shit. I've been writing this for so long now (30 min) that I actually don't give a shit anymore.

In summation, reposting OPS (other people's shit), as a form of expression, is not actually a form of expression, and certainly doesn't justify you having a blog, or a voice, or given the current state of the human population, a pulse connected to a mouth that needs to be fed periodically. Fuck you.