Confessions of a blogger

When I first commneced this project, I was quite daunted. As mentioned, not only am I a proud Luddite, but sometimes (often) computers frustrate the bejesus out of me - especially when they will not immediately do what I want of them. My ideal computer would be one that comes up with amazingly sleek, brilliant and well laid-out graphics at the mere command of my voice, and doesn't argue when I think something's just not quite right and want to change it. Bribing recalcitrant teenagers to assist is not always practical, especially so after you have just grounded them for the rest of their natural lives (having also promised to perform anatomical miracles upon them with their iPhone if they stubbornly keep refusing to answer it). So at the end of the day, I had to figure it all (mostly) out for myself.

This has actually been a good thing (when not wanting to hurl my laptop at the wall, or threatening it with the technological equivalent of grounding - still unsure what that actually is - internet and upgrade deprivation, maybe?) Anyhow, after some frustration and angst, I'm fairly proud of what I achieved and what I now know. However, I will add a small caveat: next time I would actually want to start from scratch and do the entire thing myself, from go to whoa. This is mainly because I didn't enjoy the little idiosynchrasies of the template, and its occasional reluctance to format properly etc. Or maybe I'm just a control freak. I realise that this would entail learning HTML, but hell, I was forced to study French and Latin at school for five years, so why not? 

The biggest epiphany I think I have had (and of course it seems bleeding obvious in hindsight) is of the importance, first and foremost, of presentation - first impressions do count, especially on the internet. I became sorely aware of this when conducting searches for a variety of things. In a nutshell, it seems that if a site is slow and looks shabby or amateur, chances are you will click away. It doesn't matter how good, clever or witty the content is, because hardly anyone will see it. Presentation, then, is almost everything (and minimal is the new black).

If you have conquered the above, what about the actual content? (And here I'm mainly concerned with words). It seems that the rules which apply to any other writing also hold true here. Initially I relished this part of blogging - after all, this was non-academic, chatty prose where most of the 'normal' rules don't apply, right? So,so wrong. As with all writing, a piece which is engaging, witty and effortless is actually bloody hard work - and still requires good old-fashioned editing, more than once. I suspect this is a trap for many - self-editing is always difficult.

So here I am, almost at the end of the journey, and I guess my attitude toward blogging has changed a lot. I now see the need for it, and I understand that it's often more than frivolity and vanity. More than anything, it's a unique way for us to reach out, to connect, to question, to seek and most important of all, to have a voice. Who would have thought, I'm a blogger now. What next, facebook? (highly unlikely).

Sure, there is a lot of rubbish out there, but it's worth persisting, because every so often you will find the odd bit of gold. I will, however, continue to fight the good fight for proper use of the English language (evolving or not). Just because you're on the internet, it doesn't give you a licence to be slack and lazy! That's it - I've found my crusade - I'm now a blogger with a cause!

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Dumbing it down - the kids aren’t all right

OK - here goes. I will declare my hand immediately: this is going to be an unrestrained rant about the growing misuse of the English language, especially in forums such as this. So if you are bored by this subject, or simply don't care, tune out now (if this is the case, I'm sorry, you are probably beyond help anyway). If, on the other hand, you are part of the minority who do give a damn about the future of our language (and so much more because of it) read on.

It all began with mobile phones and the SMS, or texting. Thus began a discourse where the acronym ruled. Indeed, some of these even went from the vernacular to the mainstream and even to the dictionary. The language of the text soon extended its hegemony to the email, then the blog, and now all manner of social networking platforms (personally I always think of 'twit' when I hear the word 'tweet').

So what's wrong with that?, I hear you ask. All just harmless stuff, you may say - just kids these days talking in their own language. Well I have at least a couple of problems. Firstly, any discourse which ends up excluding those who are outside the loop (intentionally or otherwise)cannot be a good thing.

For example, step back for a moment and think about advocacy for plain English - it's the same argument. Think of a profession, field or discipline you have had to deal with where much of the language is far too technical, or even unknown to you. It's not much fun, is it? Nor is it fair or inclusive. Even less so when the self-appointed gatekeepers of this (mostly) intellectual wasteland deride you for not knowing the lingo. 

My second big gripe with this practice of dumbing down language to acronymic shorthand is that it is just plain lazy and stupid. I happen to like and enjoy good language, whether it be a great speech, a polished piece of prose or a conversation with an articulate person - why should this be different in an online environment? As in the 'real' world, shouldn't we be encouraging literacy skills, instead of dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator?

But it goes much, much further. There is the matter of homogenising our language, and thus our culture—where are we without linguistic and consequently cultural diversity? This is the dark side of globalisation. Sure, there is cultural exchange, but it is very often one-sided, and comes with a price. It used to be Coca Cola, then McDonalds, and now it is (even more insidiously) Microsoft, Google, Facebook...the list keeps growing as the stakes get higher.

And don't even get me started on the dumbing down of political rhetoric - I'll save that for another day.

Oh, and if you (like me) were wondering what the word ‘derp’ means, well it’s actually difficult to pin down any kind of definitive meaning (it seems that cool kids can’t agree on this). But I believe that ‘retard’ is the most oft used definition—hardly Shakespeare, is it?

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Web stylin' - first impressions do count

One of my previous posts was intended to be about the differences between the visual design and layout elements required for online publishing (i.e. a website) and those required for print media. Unfortunately, as my blogs are sometimes inclined to do, it kind of turned into a mini-rant about other topics. So here I will endeavor to stay 'on topic', as a political adviser might suggest.

Anyway, I was recently attempting to explain the above to someone not in the field, and in doing so had one of those epiphanies - in this day and age most people expect and demand that almost anything in print will be available in the online forum. It's a scary thought, but one which we are all going to have to get used to. So it may serve us well to get acquainted with the 'rules', such as they are.

As I have mentioned in the past, first and foremost there is font selection. In the tactile and tangible world of print, we all know and love Times New Roman, along with related serif typefaces. This is what most of us have known and are used to. But poor old Times and serif friends don't do so well in the online environment (except perhaps for mastheads, headlines, graphic effects etc.) Here it is the sans serif which prevail, and more importantly, are easier for your reader.

And then there is design...quite frankly, Web 2.0 has a fair bit to answer for. OK - interactive and animation are good, but not when it comes to irritating pop-ups! Or, for that matter, web designers who clearly either have a crack or LSD problem (or both).

Naturally, though, we are all experts on graphic design and layout, aren't we? Similarly perhaps, we all have informed and educated opinions on art - but it doesn't mean that we can bloody well do it as well as the artist, does it? For example, I have never stumbled upon a block of granite and thought to myself, 'Hmmm... I bet I could sculpt something better than Rodin out of this', or looked at an outback landscape and said 'God, I could do something way better than Streeton/Nolan/Roberts/McCubbin with this lot!' This is because I could not. Whitely maybe, with drugs and alcohol...anyway, I digress.

The point is that if you want to look at least half-decent on the internet, then follow the example of those who are really good at it. I would strongly suggest a visit to Smashing Magazine for the would-be website designer - it's a good site which uses plain non-nerd language (for the most part, but even then a little editing wouldn't go astray).

Getting down to the theoretical, as I suppose we must, knowing something of 'Visual Grammar' is also useful. It's all about giving people what they want and are expecting in any given context, be it 'real' or virtual. The way that people read websites versus a newspaper, for example, is very different. An 'eyetracking' study of how people read a webpage I found fascinating - but of course, artists, painters and graphic designers have known these tricks fo centuries. A bloke named Jakob Nielsen has written a fascinating article which further expounds upon this subject.

As yet, unfortunately there is nothing akin to the Style manual for web designers or publishers - perhaps there ought to be. There are a few worthy tomes out there, though, and many conveniently (and appropriately) appear as hard copy along with either CD-ROM and/or website links for your enjoyment. Indeed, a harbinger of things to come.

But as with most things, that old adage of 'keep it simple' is never more true than here in the online world.

Online bullying goes corporate

I had almost forgotten this gem, which I had dutifully (and neatly) torn from the newspaper, folded and placed in my satchel, where it lay undiscovered until now. Once again I am unashamedly showing my Luddite tendancies, but no matter - unlike many I still prefer the old-fashioned hard copy. As previously noted, it's also a lot easier to annotate, and I find much less taxing on the eyes to read (small serif font and all). 

Anyway, the article in question was from The Weekend Australian, and it tells of a (seemingly ethical) PR firm in the US which said it had been engaged by Facebook to pretty much do everything it could to (legally) slander online rival Google. The campaign was carried out by placing negative stories about Google in newspapers, magazines and of course, online.

Interestingly, the story became public when the PR firm approached a blogger offering assistance to get his negative Google stories published in the mainstream print media. The blogger then made the email trail between him and said PR firm public (via his blog, of course) and voila!

But what is more than a little disturbing is the fact that the PR firm only owned up to this nefarious behaviour after the issue became public. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't hire this mob to do PR for my next garage sale, especially if they set the ethical bar this low.

And Facebook's response, when they finally had to admit responsibility, was like something you would get from a government department which wanted to do everything possible to obfuscate the answer - Sir Humphrey Appleby would have been proud of it (seriously - have a read). No mea culpa here, more like 'whatever'.

I for one cannot feel a modicum of sympathy for any party involved here - it's clearly all about power, control and money. If you have seen the movie Social Network, you too may gotten the feeling that Facebook's founder is possibly a semi-autistic sociopath (the above perhaps being proof) - do we really want someone like this having so much influence in the world? (and one of the many reasons I steadfastly do not facebook - I prefer my friends real, thanks).

As for Google...gosh...where to start? Suffice it to say that we have all been unwittingly sucked in by their apparent largesse - which is actually just a very disingenuous (at best) offer of online philanthropy, which is still nothing better than a base attempt to gain the biggest slice of market share.

It all comes back to the online world not turning out to be that free and inclusive democracy which was envisioned. Sadly, it has just become a virtual reflection of the real world we live in. 

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Blogging - the dark side

There was a fascinating but very disturbing article in the Weekend Australian Magazine just last week titled 'You've Got Hate Mail', in which Christine Jackman tells of the online vitriol directed at people, not all of them celebrities.

I think the most disturbing of all was that directed at the victim of a brutal rape (yes, I suppose there isn't any other kind). As I male, I was ashamed of my gender, since it seems that much of this inane hatred and filth is misogynistic. I was also impressed by the bravery of the rape victim in not only telling her story, but putting her face to the article.

But while blokes might be the majority of offenders, occasionally they are the victim. The article also told of a Chicago advertising executive who was probably driven to suicide by online white-anting and cyber-bullying. Closer to home, a Melbourne ad man tells of almost being driven to take his life because of the same thing happening - apparently all because of professional jealousy.

Of course, the advantage of the internet for your average stalker is that it is cheap, immediate, freely available and (relatively) anonymous - one can fairly assume that 99% of these sad, pathetic morons wouldn't have the fortitude to verbalise their abuse if confronted with their intended victim face-to-face.

However, this story poses a much bigger question: how do we monitor the cyber world to ensure that this doesn't go on? Naturally, the online civil libertarians will take umbrage at any sort of moderation or regulation. But if reputations and even lives are at stake, surely we have an obligation to stamp out this obnoxious behaviour.

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You are what you blog

There are blogs and there are blogs - I would reluctantly agree with a least some of what John C Dvorak says in his online article 'The Blog Phenomenon' , in that there seem to be blogs for just about every conceivable subject you could possibly think of. If you would like a more erudite (yet still witty) narrative on the subject, I urge you to look at Margaret Simon's excellent article 'Towards a taxonomy of blogs'.

Whether serious or not, what both authors above have tried to do is classify the blog, and this is an interesting notion, approached academically or just for the sake of it. Simons gives the description 'pamphleteering' to the blog which has a cause to push - there are plenty of these around, and it's good to see - online democracy in action. But of course, as with any democracy, the problem is that everyone has a voice - so which one do you listen too?

Simon's article does get a little semantic - I will not do so here. Instead, I will endeavor to keep it simple. So besides the 'pamphleteering' kinds of blog (bloggers with a cause?) there is still a plethora of others.

As Dvorak suggests, the 'vanity' blog is writ quite large, and it is worth considering the reasons for this, rather than just scoffing and dismissing these out of hand. I would humbly posit a couple of reasons: firstly, I think that this growing phenomenon (much like social networking) is a manifestation of the cult of celebrity - everyone, it seems, wants their fifteen minutes. Secondly (as Dvorak alludes to) it is also a form of reaching out, of validating ourselves and our very existence. Let' face it, we've been doing this in some way, shape or form since the first person scratched something on a cave wall.

On a more serious note, there are those blogs which are primarily concerned with news and information - they are an interactive way in which we can stay informed about, well, nearly everything. And there, of course, is the rub - there is just so much out there, but such a dearth of quality and credibility. For an example of how citizen journalists may actually just be conspiracy theory nutters in disguise, just click right here.

On the lighter side, there are blogs for those who share a common interest or hobby - even hardbitten, cynical old me was amazed and occasionally shocked by what is out there in the blogosphere. A word of warning: when you are randomly searching for weird and obscure blogs, do NOT type in the word 'fetish' - you really don't want to see some of the more disturbing interests that some people share, trust me. However, if you are bored...An example of the more mundane, but nonetheless obscure blogs, are those which fixate on plastic airfix models  (you know: aeroplanes, ships etc.) - yes, really. (As somenone who used to enjoy this hobby as a kid, I was actually quite chuffed to find it.)

So it does indeed seem that there is a blog for everyone and everything - maybe that's not such a bad thing (except for the perverts, of course).

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Online you can do (virtually) anything

In the online world, it is almost possible to live out your entire existence - yes really. In fact (sociology, anthropology, psych students & reality TV producers take note) this would be a really cool experiment, wouldn't it? Put it this way: if you advertised it as some kind of ground-breaking trial, to be filmed as a serious (or otherwise) docu-drama, with a massive cash prize up for grabs, well, the sky's your virtual limit!

Picture this: your contestants are confined to something like a one bedroom apartment, as if in solitary confinement, for what, three, six...twelve months? All they have to keep them sane (or otherwise) is the internet - so the virtual world becomes their reality.

Think about it: they would have to work, shop, interact, be entertained and communicate strictly in the online environment. On being released form this virtual prison, I wonder what their greatest yearning would be - the touch of another human perhaps? (and no, not in that way) But really, wouldn't you miss that tactile 'real' connection with another? (unless you are some kind of autistic/sociopathic freak - in which case either go and get help, or take your medication - they're watching, you know)

But on a far more mundane level, aren't we already doing this to a great degree? Once again, have a really good think about how much we all engage with this virtual reality on a daily basis: email (of course), which you have access to via your phone, on which you also pay bills, get the footy/cricket/netball scores, do a fair bit of social networking, watch stupid things on youtube and occasionally even make phone calls.

So the digital hegemony has crept up on us a little more surreptitously than we might think. Has this happened by accident? Well, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I doubt whether Bentham could imagine a better realisation of his panopticon than the internet - can you?

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Now we are digital ~ plus ça change

There is no doubt about it - a paradigm shift is occurring in the way we see our news and media presented. This change, of course, is all due to the internet. It all seems rather sudden though, doesn’t it? Think back to New Year’s Eve 1999 – there was more concern about whether the internet was going to somehow spontaneously implode, also destroying life as we then knew it. Y2K the geeks called it – gee, didn’t they clean up? (I suppose it was a form of karmic justice really).

But just over a decade hence, look at us now! For example, I feel very inadequate for being one of the few people in my workplace who doesn’t have anything akin to an iPhone. Sorry, but I just do not feel the need to either facebook (lower case deliberate) or check my emails every five minutes. Someone very wisely once called the telephone the Devil’s invention – are we now living in a Hell of our own making? One can only wonder what Milton might make of this current state of affairs: ‘Paradise Almost Found, But Then Stuffed Up, Because Everyone Got Greedy (as usual)’ perhaps?

Gosh, somehow I’ve uncharacteristically gone of on a divergent rant – how unlike me. Anyhow, all I wanted to talk about was the different design and layout demands of print v online media, and how this may affect anyone in the writing/editing/publishing world.

I for one will be saddened by the passing of Times New Roman, and all of its sibling and extended family of serif fonts – for this was what I was weaned on. The internet has no place for the serif.

I read an academic article recently by Gunther Kress. He is by all accounts something of an ‘expert’ on these matters. In this article he posits the notion that it is more the social and political forces, rather than the medium, which engender such change (as above). But I would beg to differ. It’s kind of like arguing that the Gutenberg press was not a harbinger of huge social change, and surely the internet is today’s equivalent? As I think I have mentioned in another post, were the first scratchings on a cave wall not the forebear of today's blogs? It's not, therefore, social and political change, it's just that the medium is different.

Sorry, Gunther, I am certainly no expert, but I would urge you to do some serious research into the field of anthropology, and especially semiotics – maybe start with the structuralists (Levi-Strauss perhaps), and then post-structuralists like Bourdieu and Foucault. Of course this may entail reading actual books...good luck with that.

Reference: Kress, G 1997, ‘Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: the potentials of new forms of text’ in Page to screen : taking literacy into the electronic era, ed. I Snyder, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, NSW.

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A Current Affair - the lowest common denominator?

I have a dirty little secret to reveal: for the last week or so, whilst my over-achieving corporate type wife was interstate, I have been...wait for it...watching current affairs programs on television. Now, in my defence, this was mostly done whilst preparing dinner, feeding pets, washing dishes etc. - you get the picture. However, it didn't take long to go from morbid fascination, to much amusement and then, almost without warning, to flat-out, beligerent outrage - so much so that I wanted to slap the self-righteous, conceited frown off Tracy Grimshaw's face. Yes, really.

Now, those who regularly lampoon these kinds of shows (rightly, for the most part), mainly do so because of the tabloid-like, formulaic, cliched journalism - if it can be called such (and there you have a whole new can of worms, indeed). Night after night they wheel out the Battling Invalid Pensioner, the Hard-Done-By Single Mum who will be battling The Dodgey Tradesman/Mechanic (perennial favourites), the Obstinate Beaurocrat, Slick Fraudster and so on. But what used to be sticking up for the little guy has turned into a whole new ball game: it's all about the ratings kids (for which read: truckloads of money), and if you can't find a story, you create one - you MUST out-rate your commercial rivals at any cost, it seems.

Like this gem, served up by Tracey and co last night: it seems that a butcher in Leichardt (in Sydney's fairly affluent inner-west) was caught in a random audit adding the SO2 (sulphur dioxide) preservative to some mince. Fair enough - it's illegal becuase people have allergies to it, and it is also a way to make old meat keep looking red, therefore appear fresh. All well and good, you might think.

Not the way that ACA present it: the butcher shop in question is owned and run by Asians - the subtext here is palpable, and an absolute disgrace. The ambush interview with the poor guy who manages the shop is a case in point (English is very clearly his second language, and this was exploited), as was the (voluntary) interview with the shop's owner (and good on her, I say, for standing up to this lot). The explanation was simply this: meat was put through a mincer which had been used prior for a product (sausage) which needs SO2 - the mincer had not been washed properly by an apprentice. The owner then went on to say that in ten years of business, this was the first infringement - this is what could at best be described as a 'beat up' - i.e. there is actually no story here, we might just make one up.

Cut to the clean and pristine butcher shop which, quelle surprise, is run by a white, anglo-saxon guy who (in his immaculate butcher's clobber-does he actually do anything hands-on?) tells us of the horrors caused by the use of SO2 in the meat industry. (Personally it's never caused me any problems - how about you?). My bullshit radar went off the dial when they showed him putting something which looked like eye-fillet into his impeccably clean mincer. Unless, of course, this is the standard demanded by the folk of Leichardt, which I very much doubt, because it would probably cost them north of fifty bucks a kilo - tres expensive bolognaise, even for those with a social conscience.

Then to wrap up this sad tale, we have Tracy reluctantly offering up modicums of truth (with that frown) - but it's way too late. By now your average redneck watcher is probably thinking that all asian butchers put god-knows-what into their minced products. Conversely, we don't get to know whether or not our pristine white butcher ever failed an audit - naturally, he isn't asked.

It's easy to think that this is a trivial tail, but it's not. Think about our last federal election and where the 'bell weather' seats were - the ones that really count. Many were in Sydney's west, and I dare say that this demo is replicated around the nation. The people who watch this bullshit and who also vote are possibly influenced by it (just think 'boats', 'Hanson', 'Climate what?' etc.)

It gets worse - in the same episode ACA had a story about people smuggling, out of Vietnam I think (sorry - I had lost interest by then - my pets had more intelligent things to say). Again, you could hardly pack more cliches into one story - I actually laughed out loud when they did the obscured face interview with their deep-throat source (who apparently might otherwise be killed by the triads).

We should all be very alarmed that this is our mainstream and very pervasive media - despite the digital revolution, most people still get most of their news and information from television. The oft quoted (and misunderstood) remark by Churchill about us getting the kind of government we deserve in a democracy unfortunately holds true for the media too.

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Blogging - why bother?

When I first commenced this online missal, I really didn't consider the reasons or implications of doing such, so now I am. Don't worry - I'm not going to get too revealing, soul-searching or misty-eyed (this isn't daytime television, after all).

But when I considered the above, I thought of the redoubtable genius George Orwell, and his essay 'Why I write' (from one of the many tomes which contain some/all of his collected essays). Now don't get me wrong - I'm certainly not comparing myself to the great man - far from it. I'm simply drawing a comparison between the 'act' of writing, and of 'blogging', and posing the question: are they so different?

Of course, it's a yes and no answer. I will go out on a limb here and state that Orwell, for example, wrote because he had something important to say, certainly not just for the sake of being clever and throwing words around (any idiot can do that - just pick up a newspaper). I think it is beyond doubt that he had a social policy/conscience agenda to push, and good on him. If our current media folk were perhaps ten per cent as convicted and driven as him, the world would be a much better place.

So I guess I am then saying this: if you don't have anything worthwhile to say - don't say it. If you do, say it well! And I extend this to all the twits and facebookers - social networking, or just virtually showing off?

Literary graffiti?

In last weekend's W/E Australian Magazine, the erudite foreign affairs editor Greg Sheridan wrote (amongst other things) about the practise of annotating books. It's an interesting subject, and will get a variety of reactions from different people, very much dependant upon age and occupation I suspect.

For example, ask your average tertiary student about this practise, and they will readily admit to being serial annotaters (even, god forbid, in library books, but hopefully in pencil). Actually, some may even seek out the annotated text - after all, it's kind of like someone has done your homework for you, isn't it?

Many are initially shocked at the very notion of this practice - surely it denigrates and degrades the text, somewhat akin to literary graffiti. But as Sheridan points out, it can actually be of some benefit to the next reader of the book.

Personally, I think of this as a 'meta textual' thing - that is to say, it's a unique connection between you, the author, and all who have gone before. It's actually like a backward kind of online forum, come to think of it, but done really slowly. Is that such a bad thing?

Once again though (and as Sheridan mentions), this surely has to be yet another endorsement for the old-fashioned, paper kind of book. As I may have said in previous posts: I am yet to envisage any day wherein I may look forward to curling up on the couch with any kind of electronic reading device.

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