Wednesday, August 27, 2003
A Grudgingly Half-Ass Kudos
While we here at The Anti-Blog Blogger feel there's just too much to criticize for us to say something nice, every so often a blogger gets the right idea. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day. And yesterday was The Modern Age's broken clock day. When we first read curmudgeon Benjamin "Ben" Kessler's letter to the New York Press, our first reaction was, "How did Paul Sevigny scrounge enough cash for cocaine when Dana Giacchetto cleaned him out of his money?" Our second thought was, "What the hell is Paul Sevigny thinking by sharing coke with those two blabbermouths, Jasper and Audrey, knowing full well they will just write about it, causing everyone jonesing for Face Drano to wait by the stage at an insufferable ARE Weapons show just to glom some blow?" Then we got to reading The Modern Age's response to his email. We even had a brief chuckle over a line or two until we actually read the response and found out what we just did was so... 2002. The Modern Age not only did a good job mocking him, it also did a splendid job digging up his older writings and goofing on that, too. You did us proud, Laura. Just don't get to thinking we like everything else you do.
What Benji Kessler failed to understand is that blogging is journalistic karaoke. Sure, bloggers write about real events: concerts, parties, their cats dying... but does anyone really take them that seriously? Okay, maybe a few knife-weilding bands do. And, apparently, so does Benji Kessler. We run a whole Web site dedicated to writing about bloggers but only because they're fun to make fun of.
When we read Benji's rant, it brought to mind those NYU Tisch School of the Arts dramatic writing students who always think their work is far more important than it really is. They produce nothing in the world and their testimony to their existence after they are gone is the bullshit on paper or celluloid they leave behind. In essence, they are bloggers but with SERIOUS ego problems. They're always the counter-culture yet they whine that more government funding should go to the arts rather than to making sure our borders are safe so those menacing Canadians don't get any ideas. The world just isn't right because guys like Benji aren't in charge. Just ask them. Like every other person they know, they protested the war in Iraq and have stickers on their backpacks that say they hate the President. They're open-minded but you're not and therefore, they don't want to hear what it is you have to say. Just for kicks, try finding out how many people they know are, say, pro-life. We'll bet not one. And despite Benji's inaccurate charge that bloggers are lilly-white (what the fuck is Jasper, anyway? We can't figure that one out), we'll venture to guess that his social circle looks more like the cast of "Friends" than it does the DeGrassi-style diversity of Sea Ray.
Benji, you dumb bitch, you just don't get it. Nothing anyone does is free from outside influence. We are, after all, social urban dwellers and are thus almost completely captive to the tastes of those in society we are trying hardest to replicate. Even the tastes of the counter-culture are dictated as a socialized reaction to mass culture since counter-culture has social pressures to conform within it as well. Remember in the 1980s how you bought that leather jacket and got that mohawk so you could stand out from everyone else? Yet you would go to CBGBs and see everyone with the same jacket and the same mohawk. No one wore 14th Century knight's clothing and listened to klezmer music in that scene, now did they?
You think the clothes you wear on the cutting edge but only because of your social environment and marketing. The music you listen to that you think is free from Madison Avenue's hand is really the product of your social environment and marketing. The political ideas you have are really the product of your social environment and marketing. The news you read, the shows on TV you like, the indie films you watch at the Angelica all appeal to you only because of your social environment and marketing. Even your reaction to bloggers is a result of you conforming to your social environment.
Fact is, most of the bloggers out there were on the fringe of their social environments in high school, which is relevant given the youthful age of many of them. They found a voice in the indie music scene. Until then, no one cared what they thought about music or clothes or movies or whatever. All The Anti-Blog Blogger is saying is that no one still cares, either. But no one REALLY cares about whiners like you, Benji. Maybe if you had Paul Sevigny's cocaine stash, things would be different. And when you do, let us know and we'll be nice to you, too.
What Benji Kessler failed to understand is that blogging is journalistic karaoke. Sure, bloggers write about real events: concerts, parties, their cats dying... but does anyone really take them that seriously? Okay, maybe a few knife-weilding bands do. And, apparently, so does Benji Kessler. We run a whole Web site dedicated to writing about bloggers but only because they're fun to make fun of.
When we read Benji's rant, it brought to mind those NYU Tisch School of the Arts dramatic writing students who always think their work is far more important than it really is. They produce nothing in the world and their testimony to their existence after they are gone is the bullshit on paper or celluloid they leave behind. In essence, they are bloggers but with SERIOUS ego problems. They're always the counter-culture yet they whine that more government funding should go to the arts rather than to making sure our borders are safe so those menacing Canadians don't get any ideas. The world just isn't right because guys like Benji aren't in charge. Just ask them. Like every other person they know, they protested the war in Iraq and have stickers on their backpacks that say they hate the President. They're open-minded but you're not and therefore, they don't want to hear what it is you have to say. Just for kicks, try finding out how many people they know are, say, pro-life. We'll bet not one. And despite Benji's inaccurate charge that bloggers are lilly-white (what the fuck is Jasper, anyway? We can't figure that one out), we'll venture to guess that his social circle looks more like the cast of "Friends" than it does the DeGrassi-style diversity of Sea Ray.
Benji, you dumb bitch, you just don't get it. Nothing anyone does is free from outside influence. We are, after all, social urban dwellers and are thus almost completely captive to the tastes of those in society we are trying hardest to replicate. Even the tastes of the counter-culture are dictated as a socialized reaction to mass culture since counter-culture has social pressures to conform within it as well. Remember in the 1980s how you bought that leather jacket and got that mohawk so you could stand out from everyone else? Yet you would go to CBGBs and see everyone with the same jacket and the same mohawk. No one wore 14th Century knight's clothing and listened to klezmer music in that scene, now did they?
You think the clothes you wear on the cutting edge but only because of your social environment and marketing. The music you listen to that you think is free from Madison Avenue's hand is really the product of your social environment and marketing. The political ideas you have are really the product of your social environment and marketing. The news you read, the shows on TV you like, the indie films you watch at the Angelica all appeal to you only because of your social environment and marketing. Even your reaction to bloggers is a result of you conforming to your social environment.
Fact is, most of the bloggers out there were on the fringe of their social environments in high school, which is relevant given the youthful age of many of them. They found a voice in the indie music scene. Until then, no one cared what they thought about music or clothes or movies or whatever. All The Anti-Blog Blogger is saying is that no one still cares, either. But no one REALLY cares about whiners like you, Benji. Maybe if you had Paul Sevigny's cocaine stash, things would be different. And when you do, let us know and we'll be nice to you, too.
