In honor of and the idiocy she's having to put up with from some seriously clue-challenged would-be-Alpha males, I post for the first time one of my little rants that I have squirreled away on my hard drive. Unedited except for deleting the name(s) of the mailing lists in it.
NB: substitute 'the Blogosphere', 'Technorati Top 100', or similar for 'Western Media' as desired. Still the same old, same old. Bah. I need a Saint Dogbert “Don't make me come over there!” icon for posts like these.
Western Media Journalism and The One True Pond
(rant delivered to Dietrich in person in SC 7/1/96)
“the big pond, the *real* pond, the pond that is the vanguard of where humanity is actually *going*” vs “(dietrich on phone) garrison keiler's own people”
Rant was about how various [mailing lists deleted to protect the guilty] folks constantly relate that they are in the one true pond and that they seem either unaware of the interlocking other ponds, or denigrate them to be insignificant. There are *always* ponds, and it's not that hard to find a pond you can be a big fish in. It's not even that hard to find a pond full of other fish you like that you can be a big fish in. The trick is finding one where you and the other fish *respect* each other. That's harder.
There IS NO ONE TRUE POND. Western media journalism is dedicated to the belief that there is one, and that they are “it”. That approach only works if you buy into it. Particularly bad is it to be caught in a pond, not knowing it is a pond, where the dominant paradigm is for folks to be constantly insecure and tear each other down, and measure success by how close one is to the pond of the rich and to the western media journalism pond (most emphatically NOT the same ponds! Don't confuse them!).
People who drop out and DO stuff become the “cool ones” whose ponds other people in the have-not (of self confidence) pond try to get into. If you drop out long enough, whether you are cool or not depends on how much self-confidence and not giving a rat's ass you exude when you briefly transect their pond. If you are blatant enough about having been away and not having missed it at all, your cool points go up dramatically. What a fucked up way to live!
Thought about posting this to Mobili, my public tech/web2.x/whatever blog, but that's just pandering to da man. Though maybe I'll do it anyway, if folks end up linking here, as I'd rather not have my LJ linked to much from the blogosphere, even unlocked posts.
Relentless Inquiry 
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