reflections on a self-self-self reflective world

“Blog entries are often hastily written personal musings, sculptured  around a link or event. In most cases, bloggers simply do not have the time, skills, and the financial means to do proper research… What ordinary blogs create is a dense cloud of impressions around a topic” Geert Lovink, Zero Comments.*

In writing cats looking at cats (yes, that is what it is called) what I really wanted to get across was the reflectivity/reflexivity (and hence postmodern elements) of the blogosphere and the Internet generally. I wanted to look at how some memes are still being re-energised, and that the Internet joke is a whole new genre of communication resulting from digital technology. I wanted to look at how that same idea is manifested in blogging communities where those on the inner continue discussions that visitors may not understand. I wanted to look at trackbacking and linking and how a reader with too much time can circle round and round virtually private conversations taking place withing a network of blogs. I wanted to write about the implications of this.

I didn’t accomplish that, mostly because I kept running out of space. My posts are too long. But I know that already. Ideally (I think) blog posts should be short short short. People reading on the Internet do not like looking at large blocks of text. But of course there were certain things I had to accomplish, and in a pre-determined amount of posts. C’est la vie.

Best practice

Most of the good ideas about blogging have already been written. problogger.net has some of my favourites here. Mostly I think it’s about two things:

1. Being a good writer.

2. Being consistent.

Audiences need to know that there’ll be new content every few days. Stagnant blogs stink.

The other problem with this blog is that it is not a passion project. I don’t have a niche interest that I feel needs my opinion added to the cacophony of blogging voices. The things I’m most interested in are food, sex and music. There are already far too many food blogs, especially in Melbourne. I couldn’t write about sex without blushing, particularly for school/not anonymously. And I don’t have the knowledge to compete with the plethora of music fetishists out there.

And Finally

Have a good reason to blog. Please.

//

* part of me wishes I had written a blog just about Lovink, there is just so much to discuss in his work.

all you need is (attribution) love

You guys!! it’s a link economy!

Twitter demonstrates this best, as at its most useful it is less about sandwiches and more about  narrow-casting. Ultimately, fights over self-made content are redundant. The Internet is now so difficult to manage that what we seek out is not actual content, but conduits to the content we will like, whether news or trivia. Hence defamer.com.au.

The rather excellent Lisa Dempster wrote about this a little while ago in terms of attribution and effective blogging:

“being a good link citizen will reap you these kinds of rewards: other bloggers will discover your blog … you will make people feel good about what they do and they might be more inclined to link to you in the future, you will bring people together, you will help your readers discover awesome things on the internet and they will like you for it.” (Unwakeable)

Attribution is key, and is at the heart of the Creative Commons also. All Commons licenses require attribution, no matter which license you choose. For this blog I chose the most open license, attribution 2.5 which means you can do what you like with my work so long as you link it back to me.

I chose this partly because this is a blog about blogging, an area which, more than any, demands high-levels of openness and “remixability”, if only theoretically. Secondly, it’s just some dumb blog for school (sorry guys) so who’s really going to steal my work? No one. And finally because this kind of work compared to say, a creative work (visual or literary or both) doesn’t demand the same kind of protection in my opinion. Yeah, if I was writing a short story and it was my baby I wouldn’t necessarily want someone pulling it apart for their own use, but this blog is about debate, and high levels of copyright protection in academic debate would be disastrous, especially on the Internet.

Speaking of attribution, here’s Girl Talk:

If you click on the YouTube link there, you’ll notice that whoever’s posted the video has also listed all the tracks used. I think that’s pretty much Girl Talk’s greatest defence: the songs he uses are not disguised as his own in the remix, indeed the music is popular because they are recognisable. Which is good enough for me.

(I have) Zero Comments

I have a book in front of me called Zero Comments by Geert Lovink. Now I only have this book for two hours (damn library system), so I shall do my best to share with you in that time. I like this book because it’s about nihilism and the internet. And if I like anything, it’s nihilism.

(And forgive all the quotes, but it’s an awfully good book and you really ought to read it yourselves. Lazy.)

First off, a lovely sum-up that Lovink uses, from Nicholas Carr:

“All the things Web 2.0 represents–participation, collectivism, virtual communities, amateurism–become unarguably good things, things to be nurtured and applauded, emblems of progress toward a more enlightened state. But is it really so?” (The Amorality of Web 2.0)

Lovely.

Now then.

“Is self-referentiality a sign of maturity or rather one of unsustainable ghettoization?” asks Lovink. Well, I think we should ask an internet-cat:

Yeah, cop that Lovink.

Nihilism

Ok ,  rather than getting into the old-media-versus-new arguments about citizen journalism and mass media and Rupert Murdoch and yes we’ve heard this already, didn’t The Economist do a wonderful feature on…. zzzzzzzz, Lovink is looking at the potentially nihilistic effects of the focus of blogs on personal experiences*.

He writes that “Belief in the Message” is declining, “as a micro-heroic, Nietzschean act of the pajama people, blogging grows out of a nihilism of strength… Instead of repeatedly presenting blog entries as self-promotion, we should interpret them as decadent artifacts that remotely dismantle the mighty and seductive power of the broadcast media”. So pretty. And while I cannot figure out where the “pajama people” reference comes from, I’m going to assume it means the great unwashed, i.e. you and I.

But the point Lovink goes on to makes is that the nature of a blog as simultaneously biographical as well as news/commentary has implications for the space that is being created by the “diminishing power of the mainstream media”. Apparently, blogs are on-purpose leaving that ideological space empty. Empty space = nihilism.

Comments

The title of Lovink’s book refers to his argument that there is a hierarchy in the blogosphere, and those blogs with “zero comments” are on the lowest rung, representing those which are unread. This blog is one of those. Sad.

But of course there are ways to generate comments. First I should be writing about topics people are passionate about; sex or politics. Or Masterchef. And then I’d need to link and trackback to every blog I can find that touches on those topics. And then I’d need to start writing Really Controversial (or sexy) things. Yeah. I’ll be a YouTube Millionaire:

In the meantime…

Lovink also argues that blogs are “a closed and self-referential environment in which ranking and linking to other blogs becomes more important that page views,” and “create communities of like-minded people”. This is certainly true, whether culturally or politically. People who read blogs about, say,  kitesurfing are not going to be critics of the sport, likewise political blogs, like Marieke Hardy’s no longer active Reasons You Will Hate Me tend to attract mostly those who agree with the sentiment of the author, apart from brief periods of flame wars or trolling by opposing groups.

This is a problem in terms of the usefulness of blogging, as one is generally preaching to the converted on certain topics. I would like to think, however, that despite the niche-character of blogging there are some topics which can provoke friendly and productive debate instead.

*more on this in a post to follow.

the “real” blog aesthetic

Last post I looked at zines, and briefly mentioned aesthetics. This post I’m going to address aesthetics a little more, in terms of the design differences between a personal blog and a corporate or profesh blog, what is going on with the latter, and are they still blogs?

Not suprisingly blogging was taken up relatively quickly by businesses for various reasons, to function internally for news and social support, or to make up part of that business’s “online presence” often with the intent of showing customer’s the business’s soft side. I don’t know how effective this is, as people don’t really want to read blogs like Telstra Exchange, do they?

Just as an aside, these days the aesthetics of hip and/or popular non-corporate blogs seems to be largely pared-back minimalist, with lots of white space (unless you’re M.I.A). The same thing is happening in non-digital publishing anyway, so I would say this is  a fashion rather than necessarily evolution. If you would like to take a trip down memory lane, however, I strongly recommend visiting this page to “geocities-ize” any webpage you want (I tried http://newsroom.melbourne.edu for great effect).

My choice of theme (Vigilance) was mostly because a friend of mine was already using it, and it is nice and simple. I’m having a few issues with the limitations of the theme, or perhaps wordpress generally, but as I am not into design particularly (say, compared to this young man, from whom I also stole the geocitiesizer) so it’s easier for me to use themes than have to create my own.

Anti-marketing aesthetic

In my search for a few more ideas on blog design I came across this. Arguing that ugly design is more successfull will no doubt make my arty friends sad, but it’s definitely worth looking into. The article is about five years old, however, and its point about MySpace’s popularity, despite its ugliness, is contestable now considering the Great Facebook Migration.

Anyway, the theory is called anti-marketing marketing and its success apparently lies in the audience’s assumption that an over-produce/designed blog is probably not legit; that it must be commercial. This is applied by the owner of the dating website plentyoffish.com. While I found that particular site difficult to navigate and I didn’t like looking at it, the theory makes some sense. But I think the writer fails to distinguish between corporate aesthetics and non-corporate but highly-designed personal blogs. WHICH ARE REALLY DIFFERENT.

blogs vs zines

I have a personal preference for blogs over zines. Zine fairs like at the This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle are overwhelming. There’s no search engine to guide me, no hyperlinks to explain things or introduce me to new topics and writers, and while the zine culture does revolve around a community of makers, it’s not the kind of community you can just step into and trackback and comment on and engage in as a newcomer. This is why I prefer blogs. Zines are annoying. Plus I’m a bad hipster and don’t much like the zine aesthetic.

ok, so they are rather pretty sometimes...

But there are political similarities, revolving largely around the usefulness of the mediums. Both are largely DIY, self-published and democratic, and sometimes anarchic.

Jenna Freedman a librarian from Barnard College in New York writes for the library about this comparison, finding people’s assumption that zines are like blogs “irritating” and attempting to refute this, on the side of zines.

She defines zines thus:

1. Self-published and the publisher doesn’t answer to anyone
2. Small, self-distributed print run
3. Motivated by desire to express oneself rather than to make money
4. Outside the mainstream
5. Low budget
6. No need for any special equipment or knowledge
7. Portable
8. An expression of Do It Yourself (DIY) culture
9. Foster a community among their creators and readers

Freedman argues that blogs are comparatively limited, because they are almost always hosted by a separate body, the service provider, on whom the blogger must rely. Content can be deemed inappropriate or offensive which could lead to the provider shutting down the blog. In fact this blog was, incredibly, shut down recently for a few days by wordpress.com, and I’m still not sure why. They didn’t seem to know either, although the initial reason seemed to be some suspicion that I was trying to sell things. Very odd. Which just goes to show it can happen to anyone. So fair enough. Zines in comparison, can be made as long as there’s access to a photocopier, and not even that if the maker is happy to write their own facsimiles. Paper and pen remains safe from “The Man”.

But Freedman also argues that “the voices and opinions of young people and stay at home moms are underrepresented in corporate publishing. This [zine-making] is their outlet”. But the Internet/blogosphere is full of both young people, as she points out, and stay-at-home mums. If Australian writer Mia Freedman’s blog Mamamia is anything to go by, mothers — both working and stay-at-home — are ruling the web with their (largely personal) blogs.

The whole “pen-and-paper” as democracy is argued again in the context of access. As with all discussions of the new democracy offered by the web, we have to remind ourselves that computer access is far from a given in the global community. Nevertheless, I doubt that the majority of zine-makers are people without access to a computer. Theoretically zines are more democratic, but the culture is still dominated by writers who are in the same social strata as bloggers. Furthermore, distribution is presumably still an issue. Without access to ways of distributing, such as a bookshop or zine store the zine is a limited activity. It is the distribution rather than the production which places blogs above zines in terms of freedom.

I won’t point-by-point refute everything in Freedman’s article. And I don’t disagree with everything anyway. Read it yourself and make up your own mind, what am I, your mother?

Read it here, in case you missed my earlier link:

http://www.barnard.edu/library/zines/zinesnotblogs.htm#_ftnref4

But the major point of difference between zines and blogs is interactivity. Freedman acknowledges that “the potential for interaction between creator/reader and reader/reader is much greater”. Apart from this one concession,  the tone of the article is generally that blogs are slapdash and focus on trivia, while zines are well thought-out and made with love. I think plenty of bloggers would disagree, not least of all Henry Jenkins.

Of course, what Freedman most wants to say is that the mediums are different. Not that one is necessarily better than the other.  I have my own preference, it’s true. But of course you don’t have to.

cats looking at cats: blogging on blogging

cats looking at cats looking at cats looking at cats looking at...

Welcome

Why blog about blogging?

Why the hell not. There are blogs for every subject you can think of, and plenty that you may not want to think of and, you know, blogs are Way Important. There are already lots of blogs about blogging. Some are about making money(ha!), others are just about gaining an audience for the sake of it, others just want you to have a pretty blog. But hey, at least I’m not blogging about Caffé lattes, right?

I have to admit I came from a hater’s-place. A few years back I was pretty suss about this whole so-called “Internet” phenomena, and have had to be convinced to get a myspace (since deleted), then a facebook, and more recently a twitter. I don’t tweet myself, but I use it for news and lulz everyday now. (See, “lulz” I am the totally the Internet now.)

Also, you may have noticed I’m linking all over the place. This is to demonstrate my superior use of a search engine. Also, hopefully you may want to look at the things I’m writing about. In future I’ll try to link mainly to pages I’ve read properly and think are worth noticing, but I apologise in advance if my links waste your time. It’s a link economy people! (more on that in the as-yet unwritten blog post #5).

There are lots of handy stats about the web at Alexa.com, have a look to find the most popular webpages in any topic. I tried “Narnia”. So fun!

Justification* etc.

There are a lot of blogs spinning around (and stagnating) out there. Newbies like myself need a damn good reason to start one, and also need commitment. I have neither. But at least this is a space for reflecting on the “blogosphere”/Internet and in particular I’d like to keep a focus on the self-reflexivity/reflectivity of the web. Hence the Cats Looking at Cats photo above.  Also my name is Cat. Am I blowing your mind already?

*This is a blog for uni assessment. That’s just facts, but hopefully that doesn’t make it entirely redundant/super-lame.

Niche(?)

I want to talk about niche blogging and the DIY culture later on, but right now I have to establish my niche, which leads to the question: is blogging still a “niche” activity?

Probably not, but I would say that writing about the activity, while obviously quite popular as I showed above, is still narrow-casting to some extent. People reading about blogging are going to be bloggers, and even more so, bloggers who are interested in not just their own work, but the act of blogging socially, financially, theoretically, intellectually, politically or whatever it is.  This is undoubtedly a kind of niche, and therefore I have established my audience. Brilliant.

And Finally:

xkcd