On Slashdot a couple of days ago there was a post about Lore Sjöberg’s ‘[1] Ultimate Blog Post‘ at Wired News. It’s witty and bitingly sarcastic, but according to the folks at Slashdot, he didn’t go far enough. To his list, which will appear beneath the “more” tag below, user doxology [2] added the following:

LiveJournal: So, in my desperation and eternal angst, I created another piece of art to put on Deviant Art. Also, Puffy had kittens and I saw a green Volvo on my way to college. I dreamt about horseradish last night.

MySpace: OMG! T0day, me slit wrists again. i so emo! it cuz i make video for knew my chemical romance song! watch it [here]! comment me plz! thx bai!

Xanga: i scraped knee today when goig to kindergarten. dreamt about pony. hope toof fairi gives me $$ so i can bye lickorish. dreamt of ponies lsat night!

To this someone responded that, in fact, [3] INAPPROPRIATE CAPS was the Ultimate Blog Post, with which I’m forced to agree because anything that smacks of recursion and meta-ness gets my top vote.

But however funny and/or insightful these good-natured jabs might be, what of the real backlash? A handful of my friends have expressed disdain at “Internet culture,” meaning in large part “blog culture,” insofar as that’s a meaningful designation; some while sober; and a few with such vehemence I’m asking the question here. Blogs aren’t new. “WebLogs” as such have only arisen with the advent and burgeoning popularity of the Web itself, but the ones that are personal are no newer than journals, diaries, and friends passing notes in class; and blogs that are technical are just a new take on old news feeds from manually-updated websites—and independent newspapers and esoteric magazines before them.

When e-zines hit the ‘net back before anyone would have known what “the ‘net” meant, they were the greatest thing since sliced bread for everyone who knew about them. Remember THE BOOK OF BIOC? No, probably not, because you either weren’t old enough to care—or too old to care. (My sincere apologies to those of you who were curious adolescent delinquents back in the very early ’80s learned all about phreaking from this venerable old publication which you would have downloaded from your local BBS at 300 baud and read on a green-and-black, caps-only, 40-column screen and then put into action via the supplies you picked up at your local Radio Shack.) But this was hot stuff back in the day.

Is it that the hoi polloi are in on the “blog scene”? Is there just too much rampant incredibility? What’s your gripe with the blog scene, if any? Why?

From Sjöberg’s article, as promised:

Blogs and their ultimate perfect entry:

Boing Boing: Crocheted replica of subway map cracks DRM on collection of old video games.

FARK: Drunk frat boy in Florida has sex with underage donkey, sues Strong Bad for negligence. Still no cure for overused in-jokes.

Slashdot: AMD, SCO patent MP3 over TCP/IP, sue ATI, EA. Microsoft probably responsible somehow.

Kottke: Elwin Festerator is the unsung inventor of the curly telephone cord. “I looked at a straight telephone cord, and I asked myself, Elwin, why can’t that be curly? So I went out and got my brand-new curling gun, and I curled the hell out of it.” Related link: New Yorker article on the Olympic curling team.

Engadget: Samsung releases new cell phone/mp3 player/camera/web browser/GPS/game player/wireless hub. Now in gray!

Joystiq: Will Wright to design first-person Warcraft shooter for the Wii. Jack Thompson responds with aneurysm.

Groklaw: Transcript of SCO deposition on previous court order concerning applicability of evidence to last year’s motion to review earlier statements. Seriously, we love this stuff.

Daily Kos: Bush caught in three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Little Green Footballs: Bush enjoys triumphant three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Gawker: Paris Hilton does pretty much anything.

Cute Overload: A kitten licks a puppy while the puppy licks a bunny.

Fleshbot: Same as Cute Overload, only with coeds.

MacRumors: Apple is going to sue us for revealing that Apple is going to sue us.

MAKE blog: How to create a nuclear accelerator using a Flash drive, a Commodore 64 and a guy named Roger.

Metafilter: Unhelpful [4] link text. Extra [5] links added for [6] padding that have [7] little to do with the [8] main topic of the [9] entry. Are extremely loaded rhetorical questions the only thing that can save us now?

Digg: Hey, cool, someone wrote an article about Digg!

Technorati Tags: [10] blogging, [11] Wired, [12] Slashdot, [13] BIOC, [14] phreaking, [15] humor

On Slashdot a couple of days ago there was a post about Lore Sjöberg’s ‘[16] Ultimate Blog Post‘ at Wired News. It’s witty and bitingly sarcastic, but according to the folks at Slashdot, he didn’t go far enough. To his list, which will appear beneath the “more” tag below, user doxology [17] added the following:

LiveJournal: So, in my desperation and eternal angst, I created another piece of art to put on Deviant Art. Also, Puffy had kittens and I saw a green Volvo on my way to college. I dreamt about horseradish last night.

MySpace: OMG! T0day, me slit wrists again. i so emo! it cuz i make video for knew my chemical romance song! watch it [here]! comment me plz! thx bai!

Xanga: i scraped knee today when goig to kindergarten. dreamt about pony. hope toof fairi gives me $$ so i can bye lickorish. dreamt of ponies lsat night!

To this someone responded that, in fact, [18] INAPPROPRIATE CAPS was the Ultimate Blog Post, with which I’m forced to agree because anything that smacks of recursion and meta-ness gets my top vote.

But however funny and/or insightful these good-natured jabs might be, what of the real backlash? A handful of my friends have expressed disdain at “Internet culture,” meaning in large part “blog culture,” insofar as that’s a meaningful designation; some while sober; and a few with such vehemence I’m asking the question here. Blogs aren’t new. “WebLogs” as such have only arisen with the advent and burgeoning popularity of the Web itself, but the ones that are personal are no newer than journals, diaries, and friends passing notes in class; and blogs that are technical are just a new take on old news feeds from manually-updated websites—and independent newspapers and esoteric magazines before them.

When e-zines hit the ‘net back before anyone would have known what “the ‘net” meant, they were the greatest thing since sliced bread for everyone who knew about them. Remember THE BOOK OF BIOC? No, probably not, because you either weren’t old enough to care—or too old to care. (My sincere apologies to those of you who were curious adolescent delinquents back in the very early ’80s learned all about phreaking from this venerable old publication which you would have downloaded from your local BBS at 300 baud and read on a green-and-black, caps-only, 40-column screen and then put into action via the supplies you picked up at your local Radio Shack.) But this was hot stuff back in the day.

Is it that the hoi polloi are in on the “blog scene”? Is there just too much rampant incredibility? What’s your gripe with the blog scene, if any? Why?

From Sjöberg’s article, as promised:

Blogs and their ultimate perfect entry:

Boing Boing: Crocheted replica of subway map cracks DRM on collection of old video games.

FARK: Drunk frat boy in Florida has sex with underage donkey, sues Strong Bad for negligence. Still no cure for overused in-jokes.

Slashdot: AMD, SCO patent MP3 over TCP/IP, sue ATI, EA. Microsoft probably responsible somehow.

Kottke: Elwin Festerator is the unsung inventor of the curly telephone cord. “I looked at a straight telephone cord, and I asked myself, Elwin, why can’t that be curly? So I went out and got my brand-new curling gun, and I curled the hell out of it.” Related link: New Yorker article on the Olympic curling team.

Engadget: Samsung releases new cell phone/mp3 player/camera/web browser/GPS/game player/wireless hub. Now in gray!

Joystiq: Will Wright to design first-person Warcraft shooter for the Wii. Jack Thompson responds with aneurysm.

Groklaw: Transcript of SCO deposition on previous court order concerning applicability of evidence to last year’s motion to review earlier statements. Seriously, we love this stuff.

Daily Kos: Bush caught in three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Little Green Footballs: Bush enjoys triumphant three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Gawker: Paris Hilton does pretty much anything.

Cute Overload: A kitten licks a puppy while the puppy licks a bunny.

Fleshbot: Same as Cute Overload, only with coeds.

MacRumors: Apple is going to sue us for revealing that Apple is going to sue us.

MAKE blog: How to create a nuclear accelerator using a Flash drive, a Commodore 64 and a guy named Roger.

Metafilter: Unhelpful [19] link text. Extra [20] links added for [21] padding that have [22] little to do with the [23] main topic of the [24] entry. Are extremely loaded rhetorical questions the only thing that can save us now?

Digg: Hey, cool, someone wrote an article about Digg!

Technorati Tags: [25] blogging, [26] Wired, [27] Slashdot, [28] BIOC, [29] phreaking, [30] humor