Day 7: Facebook Generation

I contemplate modernity a lot. Too much, probably, seeing as it usually leaves me feeling exasperated. But there are questions I always return to, like:

What is Facebook doing to our generation? We will be remembered as the Facebook generation, unless we stage some other crisis or discovery quick. But how is this state of ‘ambient communication’ really affecting us? I talked a bit yesterday (although actually it was very early this morning, I lied about the date – this time I’m actually on top of things. Well. On top of this. Not on top of other things) about personal descriptions and resumés, at least I think I did, and how I feel I can’t convey much accurate information through them, vital though it may be to do so.

That’s not to say that information isn’t being transmitted, however. I’m reminded of how much I read into other people’s descriptions of themselves; on Facebook, for example. No one really reads those anymore, but on occasion when I’m engaging in a bit of FB stalking I do take it it. And arrogantly, as I am, I take their words and phrases to speak volumes about themselves, things they don’t necessarily want to communicate but that I can adeptly pick up on and know them by. Ha. I’m inexcusably cocky under my humble exterior, you know. I try to hide it when really what I should be doing is dismantling it, so it imposes itself on how I think about myself and others.

Ostensibly others are doing the same with me, if they’re anything like me in terms of arrogance or narrow-mindedness. So what are they reading into my introductions that I don’t mean to say? And would that have anything to do with why I haven’t gotten any solid couch offers yet? Heh. On the other hand, there’s no end to the second-guessing. Live your life, as they say.

So what do all these short personal introductions we write do to how we think about others and how we think about ourselves? Not to mention all the trivial stati, the ‘like’-ing, the commenting…

It’s yet another one of those things I would love to research, but so far haven’t considered it high enough up on my list to make time for. And lately I’ve been feeling more and more like you can study and study and never get much closer to understanding things as complex as how the world works, and how people work. Someone needs to inspire me with a ray of insight before I get any more disenchanted. Part of me recognises this as the natural ebb and flow of studenthood, though. You come in with all these notions of learning the world inside out and figuring out how to change it, nay, save it, and then you run straight into the wall of books of lifelong scholars saying, “This issue is incredibly complex; here’s what tiny progress I’ve made past everyone I’m citing, but this issue is really complex, you know, and there’s so many immeasurable factors that really, I’ve devoted my life to this marginal field of research and have very little to show for it, guess I’ll just be satisfied as a parenthetical citation in someone else’s next book.”

Presumably it’s somewhere in the course of your second, third, master’s, or Ph.D. year that you come to accept that meagre satisfaction of being quoted as adequate reward for years of research, for so many years are already gone; either that or you change majors.

I say screw that. Screw that to the sticking-place (sticking-post? Points if you know where this quasi-quote is from). I’m gonna change the world.

But it’s not going to be through blogging. Or vlogging. Well…maybe vlogging. My Japanese video is strangely getting a lot of views, so I need to capitalise on that niche.

Here I was going to talk about my oldest memories of Christmas, and how I got a LEGO set that had a broom in it, and I was really excited about that broom because it was probably the first tool-type piece I’d ever gotten. Oh, LEGO, how I miss you. When I set up someplace semi-permanent I’m going to get all my LEGO over there and play to my heart’s content for a day, then go save the world.

But those memories will have to wait. I’m going to call this a day, whatever state I or it is in, sleep nicely and sufficiently, knock out what I need to tomorrow and take stock of my life.

Yeah, like I said, I’m idealistic.

Here’s a dearly beloved bit of culture for the road:

Bait and Trap (Or Was It Snatch?)

Similar to what I said in my last post, I’ve been thinking about how to make this site more appealing to draw more visitors. I was thinking of what leads me to a blog. Not much, to be honest. I don’t read many blogs, which is probably a result of my poor opinion of them. In general I find blogs to be painful due to the poor grammar, boring due to the blogger writing about things I and the rest of the world have very little interest in, and distasteful because of the often cheap backgrounds and website structure. And now I see that my blog, as much as I try to avoid calling it that, basically falls under the above description. I most fervently hope I can at least avoid the first faux pas, however. I’ll take a properly written boring blog over a grammatically heinous moderately intriguing piece any day. Is that true? I suppose it depends on how far ‘moderately intriguing’ can stretch. My point is, get the grammar right, folks. I can bear terrible structure and irrelevant content. Just please be a little more careful with the easy stuff. There’s no excuse. You’re doing a bad job of representing yourself to the public, no matter how much you swear that no one cares. I judge you when you use poor grammar, that’s why I joined a Facebook group saying just that. See, I’m an activist for positive change. Ha. As if joining groups changes anything. Remember that.

So now all of you will be jumping on my every typo, right? That’s the idea. I figure if I ask you guys to let me know of any mistakes in my writing you’ll feel like I’m using you and won’t do it, but if I give you the opportunity to prove me a hypocritical bastard, well, that’s just too juicy to pass up, isn’t it? That’s what I should’ve done in high school to get decent peer editing – claim my grammar was perfect, my flow was excellent, and my conclusions impeccable. Ever get the feeling your fellow students didn’t really care about your essay or what grade you got? News flash: they didn’t. Except in terms of how the comparison with their grade made them feel.

That reminds me of Zoolander, which I watched last night, like I said before. There’s a funny bit involving the phrase “Earth to…” which I would say is probably the funniest part of the movie. Yeah, it’s not too funny. I was disappointed. It wasn’t worth my time. So few movies are, don’t you think? One of these days I’ll probably put out some really harsh movie reviews just to let out steam and increase this load of content not getting read.

I think the main thing is that I’m just sick of Ben Stiller. I think I was sick of him the first movie I saw him in. I just don’t find him funny.

But that’s enough on that. I accomplished my grammar goal. My primary objective is to discover what makes a blog appealing, even return-worthy, and how I can utilize that to gain followers and make money. Muahahaha.

Kidding. I would like to make money, and I will shamelessly flaunt ads to do so (barring those Evony travesties), but this isn’t about gaining followers. I would like to someday be able to call it a community of creators and appreciators, so I need to spend time thinking about how to get to that point.

I just read a blog article entitled “The Top 10 Snipers in History” or something along those lines. I saw it in some list on WordPress and clicked on it because I’m very interested in snipers. So what my articles need are captivating titles. They also need relevant and popular tags so that they’ll show up in searches. I would say that so far I’m succeeding in these two things. What’s left is to enlarge my content stash.

And how to keep readers here once they arrive? Well, interesting articles, for one. That’s so subjective. In the future I may write to please readers – when I actually have readers – but for now I’m sticking with what interests and pleases and satisfies me (as far as content and style). I had another thought earlier. The blog has to do something for the reader. If I’m putting out wonderful works of literature and especially poetry, that’s good enough on its own because readers will be inspired by the works and attempt to liberate their own creativity, or simply bask in the beauty. But I’m not. I hope to, but I’m not currently. So I need to help you out somehow to motivate you to return here the next time you’re in need. Good but not great prose needs practicality – the interest keeps you reading, the help brings you back.

Something like a guide to further information. That would be the simplest, probably. That list of snipers would’ve been greatly enhanced by links to websites with more information, which I’m sure exist because the author definitely wasn’t writing off the top of his head. I haven’t really written any information articles yet – but then again all my posts are information to a certain degree. So I should consider offering links for further enlightenment. It’ll at least draw the frantically procrastinating middle schoolers.

DIY (not DUI) blogs seem to be fairly popular. So I might want to consider putting that sort of slant on some of my articles. Surely I have plenty I could teach how to do. Mm…like fruit revolutions, for example. I’ve been meaning to make a video about that and post it on Youtube.

Speaking of videos, I also thought of making a video on how to get a job in Japan, a detailed version of Andy’s which I embedded in another post, put it on Youtube as a reply to said video, and include a link to this blog in that description. That would surely draw a few bored surfers. Andy has a pretty sizeable fan base which I can take advantage of (I mean that in the most parasitic way possible).

Until then, I guess I won’t be seeing you, because you haven’t yet arrived, but you will.

-Brad