Passing phases

There is this idea that the momentary explosion of personal blogs is transitory, and that in the not so distant future the blogosphere will be transmuted into a controlled entertainment channel, with big interests like TV Networks (or their future analog) pulling the strings of a handful of essential bloggers. I happen to extend back to the original explosion(s) of personal computing. I bought one of the first Apple IIs, which maybe doesn't make me a member of the Homebrew Club, but gets me staring at my computer screen in 1981 while attempting to program in the native machine language. I peeked and poked with the best of them. I remember life before PCs. I remember life before the Internet (or, more cogently, before the WWW). And I remember all the bloviation, including my own, that occurred with each new phase of cybernetic life. Hell, I remember reading Norbert Wiener when cybernetics was a concept, and driving Arthur C. Clarke to the airport chatting about negative feedback.

I've lived an interesting existence, off and on.

As you probably know, I have, shall we say, mixed feelings about my friends at WTF, but I freely admit that I regularly visit, simply because they are, indeed, debate central at this stage of the game. I don't read in much depth, but I keep informed. But if I am conflicted about them, you can imagine my feelings about something like MySpace. Great googly-moogly, as they say up at TWHS. No one my age in their right mind would venture there more than once. If that. Which is, I would contend, a good thing for all involved. My understanding is that MySpace is merely the latest in a series of hot spots not unlike MySpace, where folks can do whatever they want to use the internet as a zone of personal expression. Of course, it's a zone of millions of personal expressions, or at least it and its predecessors (and successors) are that large a zone. If adults (none of whom could conceivably be in their right mind) do something to make MySpace less of the moment, hints of which seem to be in the air, its denizens will simply pack up and move somewhere else and recreate the same thing where the adults can't find it, setting in motion a virtual flashmob, so to speak.

Getting back to The History of Computing, Part One, The Early Years, one of the things that many of us have believed since day one of connected computing, is that the internet provides an outstanding opportunity for personal expression, irregarding the number of people to whom your person is being expressed. That is, if I write something that is in no way published, it is the most sterile form of self-expression. If I type it up and print it and no one ever has access to it, I have indeed expressed myself, but I am like Bishop Berkeley falling in the forest and no one hears him. Did he actually fall? But at the moment I publish myself, in any way, my self-expression at the very least seeks to connect with others. My voice can at least potentially be heard.

In the early days of connected computing, there was great theorizing that the internet would provide a bazillion opportunities for personal expression. Everyone would have their own website. And the pundits came along and said, no way, Hose A, because this is just a bubble reflective of novelty, and no one wants to visit a bazillion private websites. The big corporate website will replace the little private website.

Yes and no.

Sure, I go to Expedia and Amazon and my news sites regularly. I visit Apple as the need arises. I can spend a whole day managing my Netflix queue. But additionally, I have an RSS page where I grab a glance at the things that interest me. Some of these blogs are fairly popular (say, Boing Boing). Some are pretty narrow (Re-Imagineering or WTF). Some are personal (CLG). None of them seem to be going away. By the same token, although not with me on board, since I make some claim to being an adult in his right mind, MySpace and its ilk thrives as exactly the sort of personal site that was long ago going to be replaced by the corporate model.

What does this say? Well, I'm thinking about it only because, well, why do I even write this thing, or put out Nostrum shows, or pomo lectures, given the immense minusculeness of my audience? Why do any of us write, or publish our various self-expressions? I would suggest that the health of self-expression in the vast arena of the internet, where there's only the slightest chance of our voices being heard, indicates a strong inherent desire on the part of many of us simply to express ourselves. To give voice to thoughts. To suggest that we only exist if someone hears us falling in the forest.

I like knowing that you're alive, if you are in my particular circle. If you have an indication of it, I will read it. I will list you over on the right if you do, if that's all right with you. You'll have to post enough to keep us interested, though. Send a card once in a while, in other words, unlike, say, Burgers, who ever since he posted that school had become hard work, has barely been heard from, thus fulfilling his implied prophecy that he might have to do some of that work. I especially like knowing where the old Sailor debaters are. I like telling the Sailors who read this where the other ones are. Of course, I also like posting the thoughts of the average debate coach, on the assumption that the average debater would have a passing interest not in Menick but in average debate coaching. The fact that I let in a lot of Menick falls back on that urge to express. (My writing sounds like me, I've been told. And I've always thought that I write like Dan Quayle. What a disappointment.)

My point? Only that, as time goes by, regardless of all predictions to the contrary, individuals do continue to own an enormous part of the web. Re-form it, re-purpose it, it doesn't matter. We're here for the duration. And I, for one, think that that's a good thing. (But then, that's only me thinking I'm Dan Quayle.)

Potatoe For President in '08!!!