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Text File  |  1996-03-11  |  9KB  |  151 lines
  1.                            [stating the obvious]
  2.          ---------------------------------------------------------
  3.                              "Here I Am" vs. "Here is What I Think."
  4.  
  5.                              March 11, 1996
  6. [the obvious archives]       A couple of weeks ago I had an
  7.                              interesting email land in my inbox. It
  8.                              was from an obvious reader, though he
  9.                              didn't really identify himself as such.
  10.   [the obvious links]        He just dove right into the topic at
  11.                              hand...
  12.  
  13.                                   as each of us develops and
  14.                                   leaves a trail of ideas on
  15.   [about the obvious]             this net it amazes me how
  16.                                   quickly it is becoming less
  17.                                   the self-indulgent "here I am"
  18.                                   and more the "here is what I
  19.    [EFF Blue Ribbon]              think." that and commerce -
  20.       The obvious                 the ads proliferate.
  21.         ribbon.
  22.                              At first, I was flattered. "Finally," I
  23.                              thought. "Stating the Obvious has found
  24.                              a kindred soul... One who sees my weekly
  25.  A big fat welcome to        musings as a light in the darkness,
  26.     Crisp readers.           guiding him away from the unwashed,
  27.   You can get back to        self-indulgent masses." Well, maybe
  28. where you came from...       that's going a bit far. Maybe I was just
  29.                              happy to be thought of as one in a
  30.                              "trail of ideas."
  31.  
  32.                              But then something hit me. Why the hell
  33.                              is here I am considered to be more
  34.                              self-indulgent than here is what I
  35.                              think? And when it's so damn easy to
  36.                              publish on the web, and considering that
  37.                              hardly anyone out there is operating
  38.                              under an editor's benevolent knife, is
  39.                              there really a difference between here I
  40.                              am and this is what I think?
  41.  
  42.                              I've been reading a good deal of here I
  43.                              am type sites lately. Maybe it's just
  44.                              because the "trail of ideas" can be
  45.                              completely mind-numbing; opinion after
  46.                              opinion after opinion. It's the here I
  47.                              am sites that leave more than a trail of
  48.                              ideas -- they're proof that there is a
  49.                              trail of people out there behind the
  50.                              addresses. Not to mention lots of
  51.                              personal dirt to satisfy any voyeur's
  52.                              cravings...
  53.  
  54.                                 * Justin Hall turned links from the
  55.                                   underground into www.links.net, the
  56.                                   home page of which is a daily free
  57.                                   form poem on the state of his life
  58.                                   at Swarthmore College. Right now,
  59.                                   Justin seems to be enduring a
  60.                                   spring break trip to Florida. But
  61.                                   the writing continues unabated,
  62.                                   with stories of night time on the
  63.                                   Daytona strip.
  64.  
  65.                                 * Greg Knauss lives his "other" life
  66.                                   in Los Angeles, punctuated by the
  67.                                   occasional email message, each one
  68.                                   beginning with the casual "so..."
  69.                                   As in, "So Larry and Heather gave
  70.                                   Joanne and I a breadmaker..." or
  71.                                   "So there's this billboard along
  72.                                   the 405..." or "So Joanne and I are
  73.                                   in Vegas on New Year's Eve..."
  74.  
  75.                                 * Mark Thomas (a self-described man
  76.                                   of action) continues his writings
  77.                                   on New York miscellany. Amongst
  78.                                   stories of mis-dialed phone
  79.                                   numbers, dreams of job rejections,
  80.                                   and auditioning pianos, there are
  81.                                   receipts. Dozens of them. For
  82.                                   groceries, records, pet supplies,
  83.                                   soap and depression medication.
  84.  
  85.                                 * Rebecca Eisenberg writes her daily
  86.                                   journal about not much in
  87.                                   particular, save 2 a.m. sessions on
  88.                                   IRC and nights spent at the
  89.                                   Paradise Lounge in San Francisco.
  90.                                   But you've got to admire someone
  91.                                   with their own FAQ, where they
  92.                                   answer the question "so, do you
  93.                                   sleep?" with "not much. do you?"
  94.  
  95.                              There's a site, though, that continues
  96.                              to confound. And that, of course, is
  97.                              Suck. Joey Annuff and Carl Steadman seem
  98.                              to live simultaneously at the two
  99.                              extremes of here I am!!! and this is
  100.                              what I think.
  101.  
  102.                              Most pieces, like the their rants
  103.                              recounting their visit to the TEDSell
  104.                              conference, or the Media and Democracy
  105.                              Congress screams nothing more than "we
  106.                              were there! You weren't!"
  107.  
  108.                              Pure here I am.
  109.  
  110.                              Occasionally they'll pull off a piece
  111.                              like "The Bookmark Less Travelled,"
  112.                              which bemoaned bookmark management
  113.                              software, since it encourages web
  114.                              surfers that are "always traveling,
  115.                              never arriving." Or "TV by the Blind,"
  116.                              which nailed every corporate web effort
  117.                              to the wall.
  118.  
  119.                              Pure this is what I think.
  120.  
  121.                              Maybe that tension is the point. Maybe
  122.                              they are just playing with the nature of
  123.                              the web, playing with the tension
  124.                              between the frivolity of personal
  125.                              journals and the self-righteous
  126.                              seriousness of brainstorms.
  127.  
  128.                              Eh, maybe not. But if they are, they've
  129.                              got their work cut out for them. When
  130.                              Suck sold out to HotWired, Brock Meeks
  131.                              called them the "ombudsmen with
  132.                              Attitude." Note the capital A. From what
  133.                              it looks like, they're going to use
  134.                              their new found HotWired resources (read
  135.                              "money") to expand their site. A
  136.                              rant-a-day is one thing. A full fledged
  137.                              site which continues to straddle the
  138.                              line between pure ombudsmen and pure
  139.                              attitude is another.
  140.  
  141.                              Not to mention what the nature of
  142.                              "proliferating ads" (as my friendly
  143.                              correspondent put it) will do to them.
  144.  
  145.                              -----------------------------------------
  146.                              Copyright 1996 by Michael Sippey
  147.                              michael@theobvious.com
  148.                              Enhanced for Netscape 1.1 and higher.
  149.                              This site changes every
  150.                              Monday...bookmark it.
  151.