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BRING ON THE WORST
J.F. Beck ain’t impressed by the alleged Best Australian Blog Posts of 2006, and with good reason; most of them are awful. Also, most aren’t particularly bloggish. Of the 19 so far listed, more than half contain no links at all. Four others run three links or fewer.
These aren’t posts. They’re conventional - although exceptionally dull - opinion pieces.
UPDATE. All but two of these pieces employ the Dreaded I:
* “I recommend you begin …”
* “I don’t mean for this post …”
* “When I arrived at work today I began …”
* “I have to admit to having been shocked …”
* “I did actually turn 30 …”
* “Some time ago, I wrote an item …”
* “I was fascinated to read the decision …”
* “I think it’s fair to say …”
* “Sometimes I think …”
* “I’ve never met Judy …”
* “I assume the subtext …”
* “I have met many different refugees …”
* “I doubt that the restorative powers of Tim Tams are recognised …”
* “I know it’s difficult for you to understand …”
* “I am taking a sojourn in the country …”
* “I have a connection …”
* “I should add …”
* “Yesterday I went to a funeral …”
And my favourite:
* “Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t been writing more about progress on my letterpress project and my arts grant.”
UPDATE II. Amos has views.
A few of the posts are worth reading but most are tedious, self-indulgent bullshit from self-important lefty academics.
But that’s what makes them important.
:^þ
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 12:05 PM • permalinkUgh. Reading through a few pushed me back to the dreary days of Comp 101, where we had to read dreary “important” essays by vegetarian feminists about their teenage abuse at the hands of Oppressive, Patriarchal society.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 15 at 12:12 PM • permalinkJesus Christ, is EVERY one of those posts dreary bleating from some obscure leftist wanker?
Oh no! Jackboot Johnny H. has put adorable moppets and their lying, documents-losing Pakistani parents in a camp! OH NO TERRORISM DOESN’T EXIST BUT WE ARE BEING MANIPULATED BY OUR EVIL LEADERS TO THINK IT DOES! Everyone in Australia is a fucking idiot and a horrible racist but me! Oh Christ, the lithium is wearing off and the first chilling realizations as to what a profoundly unoriginal, irrelevant little masturbator I am is seeping past my shaky psychic barriers! My brain is a collection of fucking bumper stickers and I’ve never had an original insight or idea in my life!
I will now hit SEND and jam another half-melted snickers bar into my mouth and mash it up with my brown, stump-like sheaf of stubbly pseudo-teeth! Checkmate, military-industrial complex!
#3 Andrea,
I laughed out loud at your comment because I had a similar experience teaching such a class in an inner city high school. I was filling in for a colleague who was, per state mandate (NYS Regents Exam), using an Alice “The Color Purple” Walker essay to teach a group of predominately male African-American students how to write.
They rejected the essay for the solipsistic pity party it was and (correctly although I refused to confirm it) figured Walker was selected based solely on her race and gender and not on anything she had to say to high schoolers.
I protested that Alice Walker was “Important” and won a Pulitzer and hung with Oprah and...and… but these street wise kids knew better. I felt like such a dork sticking up for her but dared not drop the mask for the sake of my job.
” ... chosen and edited by Ken Parish and Nicholas Gruen. This is a collaboration with Club Troppo.”
Well, that’s all I need to know. I don’t need to read it. I know it’s utter crap.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 15 at 03:25 PM • permalink#5 JDB: That’s an interesting story. Kids will sometimes surprise you; many of them have a pretty good eye for the “real thing”, and are quick to spot the trite and phony, regardless of the endorsements.
BTW, Beck also links to an interesting story which claims that 50% of bosses may be psychopathic. I think that number is a little on the low side. I mean, I’m a boss, and many of the people at my level and higher are clearly blood-thirsty power mongers. Not me, of course. I’m f-f-f-fine. Just d-d-d-dandy. But I do have to watch out for them. You know. Those “others”. They’re constantly conspiring against me. Takes steel ball bearings out of coat pocket and begins to roll them around in right hand. For example, just the other day, I heard loud laughter outside in the hall, near my office. I’m positive that the person was laughing at something someone said about me. *Click, click, click*. But I don’t know who it was who made the offensive comment, or even what he said, or even if it was a “he”; might have been a woman. *Click, click, click* Oh, I’ll get to the bottom of it, make no mistake. *Click, click, click* And when I do, they’ll be lucky to get a job changing oil filters at Jiffy Lube. *Clickety-clickety-clickety!!*
We were too lowly in my family to even dream of fondling ball bearings in an office. I had to learn the hard way how to keep co-workers on their toes.
And it’s paid off handsomely. They don’t call me The Homicidal Glare for nothing.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 01 15 at 04:50 PM • permalinkJDB: I’ve never seen The Color Purple and I hope to never see it. I’ve never read it either. I did, however, happen upon an Alice Walker paean to Mumia the Cop Killer (in the Utne Reader) that was so embarrassing in its gushing worship that I nearly threw up. I’ll bet Mumia refuses to take her calls.
(The Utne Reader used to provide me with hours—well minutes—of amusing bathroom reading. At some point, though, I decided I’d be better off eating more fiber.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 15 at 05:00 PM • permalink#4 Amos
Subsitute “Chimpy McFlightsuit” for “Jackboot Johnny” and “American” for “Australian” in that and you’ve described the archetype Daily Kos Diarist to a “T”. That was brilliant!
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 15 at 05:29 PM • permalinkAaah - one of my favourite topics - global village idiots.
My personal favourite blog posts are those that are so bad they are good, like say, this un, that I think is a fine example of personal - that is - way too personal blogging. (NB If it’s only showing comments, click on “Show original post")
I also love this one as an example of a damn near impenetrable writing style. I think the guy is being an enviro-sceptic, so deserves credit for gumption, but his writing cracks me up.
I also love diary-type blogs where someone posts the most unintentionally dreary stuff, for example, “Yesterday, had a meeting in the afternoon, before heading out to buy some celery,” and on, and on, and on… The key to the amusement is that the writer genuinely has no idea how dull they are.
I don’t have an example at hand right now, but if anyone can find one of those types for my viewing pleasure…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 15 at 05:39 PM • permalinkIf this is the best the blogosphere has to offer, it’s fucked.
- J.F. Beck
I agree.
Posted by curious george on 2007 01 15 at 05:47 PM • permalinkOf the 19 so far listed, more than half contain no links at all. Four others run three links or fewer.
That’s a bit much, Tim. Several of the posts on your front page run at ‘three links or fewer’, too. I don’t see why there should be a strict distinction between opinion columns and blog posts, anyway.
Tim! Didn’t you know that it’s in THE INTERNATIONAL RULES OF BLOGGING that you must publish self-obsessed, turgid yet flowery wank on a constant basis to be considered not only a good writer, but also a worthy member of the blogosphere? Plus you have to be nice to all other bloggers, always, even if they are wankers who write crap. No wonder you don’t get invited to grogblogging.
The headlines on the Lucy Tartan piece summarise all of the articles far better than I can:
1. “Pretentious and illiterate verbal sludge”
2. A farrago of sexist claptrap thinly disguised as religious mumbo-jumbo
3. Stupid about pictures
4. Ecological desertification in the bookshops
5. It’s crap and will rot your brain!
Posted by The Mongrel on 2007 01 15 at 06:48 PM • permalink#17 - Good to see you here Caz. Or should I say Catherine Hart, as that is your secret identity! Bwawawahah!
Own up Caz. You’re just bitter about not being included in this list of stellar writing talent. Owing to you being a h8er and all, and not following the IMMUTABLE INTERNATIONAL LAWS OF BLOGGING!
Posted by The Mongrel on 2007 01 15 at 06:51 PM • permalink#12 For some reason, I thought Utne Reader was a Canadian disease. Obviously it’s international.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 15 at 07:13 PM • permalinkThe Mongrel, if you’re as aware of the INTERNATIONAL RULES OF BLOGGING as you claim to be you will realise you no longer have a right to a pseudonym now that you have “outed” me here on this blog. The fact that the name “Catherine Hart” has been revealed elsewhere by someone who is not you does not excuse you.
#12 & #20 Andrea and Wimpy,
Pre-Internet, I too used to subscribe to the Utne Reader as well as Newsweek and The New Republic. I also listened to National Public Radio religiously.
That’s what shocks me about the Lefty attitude towards Islamists.
As someone said, imagine a marketing group researching the perfect enemy for the Left: “They’ll be racist, sexist, homophobic, religious fascists who’ll destroy art, music, and human life in a fanatical attempt to control the lives of millions.”
Leftist response: “Nope. I still think Country Club Republicans are the real enemy!”
I guess I should’ve known all those Lefty essays I read in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s about standing up to Islamist-types were just bullshit bravado.
Am I wrong? Does it appear that a number of articles made by Mr. Parish made the short list, despite he and his site being the co-organiser/moderator for the ‘competition’?
If so, surely he would want to exclude his own turgid bleatings?#1, Lardarse Prodildo was there as were the usual suspects, most of whom I imagine wear sack-cloth, ride a pushbike and have a scarecrow with Bush’s face to protect their veggies.
Andrea and JDB, what always struck me about the Utne Reader was how intentionally ugly they made the cover of their magazine. The ugliness of the cover acted almost like a force-field, preventing me picking up a copy and browsing through it. My loss. NOT.
Here’s the cover from the April, 2005 issue:
Yup, that looks like something I want to spend $3.50 on.
Posted by David Crawford on 2007 01 15 at 09:53 PM • permalink#22 Caz -
The Mongrel, if you’re as aware of the INTERNATIONAL RULES OF BLOGGING as you claim to be you will realise you no longer have a right to a pseudonym now that you have “outed” me here on this blog. The fact that the name “Catherine Hart” has been revealed elsewhere by someone who is not you does not excuse you.
Oh whoo pee. So you’re Catherine Hart. Gee whiz, he could given your hometown and your body dimensions and it wouldn’t mean a thing. Once this post goes to page three of the archives, you’re all forgotten. Sorry Catherine.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 15 at 09:59 PM • permalink#22- Caz, I am suitably chastened. The INTERNATIONAL RULES OF BLOGGING are opaque indeed. It’s lucky there are sages like Julie Frost to interpret them for people like me.
I’ll just go into the library and beat myself up.
Posted by The Mongrel on 2007 01 15 at 10:36 PM • permalink"alleged Best Australian Blog Posts of...”
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 15 at 10:49 PM • permalinkJust like movies, TV, books, music, plays, etc., the internet is 10% gold and 90% crap. Maybe even 5% and 95%. Disheartening, but there you are: human communication in a nutshell.
Fortunately, I managed to delve into the 10%. Or 5%. So, thanks, Tim and Andrea, and the few other bloggers I check periodically.
Of the 19 so far listed, more than half contain no links at all. Four others run three links or fewer.
More importantly, how many contain pics of their owner’s cat?
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 01 15 at 10:55 PM • permalink...the internet is 10% gold and 90% crap
I think you’re being very generous, Rebecca. I’d go for 2% gold and 98% crap myself.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 16 at 12:46 AM • permalinkI think you’re being very generous, Rebecca. I’d go for 2% gold and 98% crap myself.
The thing is, 90% of the gold is also crap.
Sturgeon’s Law is recursive.
(Sturgeon’s Law, named for science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who said: “Ninety percent of science fiction is crap. Come to think of it, ninety percent of everything is crap.")
The growth in crap sites is a Japanese lead phenomena. As if Hello Kitty wasn’t scary enough.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 16 at 01:08 AM • permalinkThe good news is that there is gold in crap. I mean, literally.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 16 at 01:15 AM • permalink#5. er...just on the writing thing…
it’s “predominantly”...not “predominately”.Better to know now, where you’re among friends :)
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 16 at 07:52 AM • permalink#12. I’ve read The Color Purple.
A beautiful book.
Just becasue people get wanky about something doesn’t mean it’s not good, it just means they’re:
a) wankers
b) inarticulate and need to gush
c) read the Cliff Notes version.Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 16 at 07:56 AM • permalinkcarpefraise, I don’t think anyone has said that The Color Purple was a bad book. That’s not the point. The initial matter at hand was whether an essay by the same author was an effective and engaging choice for teaching a predominantly male, high-school writing class. The answer turned out to be “no”, in case you missed it.
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At least he seems to have omitted the truly pathetic creatures at lavatory rodeo.