This is a magical time. We are in the Make-believe Era. Our society has reached an age in which anyone with a wifi-connected device has the freedom to invent stories, self-promote, create worlds within worlds, and contrive entirely fictitious personas as the result of the Internet. Creatives can indulge their sense of power. Yes, the Web gives us access to incredible tools and information, but there is a necessary degree of responsibility for this kind of leeway. Every day, that necessary degree of responsibility goes unmet.
How many times do you scroll through your Facebook feed and click on something a friend shared, only to find you're disappointed with the link (including my fucking blog)? Next time you get the urge to waste your time, perhaps you should ask yourself a few questions:
1. How does the title of the page or article read?
- If the title reads like a line from an eighth grader's journal entry, it's probably best that you leave it alone.
- If the title suggests that a certain group of individuals should "just give up," you may want to bypass.
- If the title claims that the article's subject is funny, unbelievable, or adorable, ask yourself why you're wasting your work day.
- If the title has a number, therefore indicating that the article is a list, move the fuck on. I am contradicting myself because I re-posted a listed set of guidelines, allegedly from Goldman Sachs (though I can't be sure of the source), on what it is like to be a man. The list was good.
2. Is this a reputable publication?
- One of my favorite tests for whether or not a source is reputable is knowing if the online site has had a physical counterpart before the Internet.
- If the page contains "Huffington" in the title, it's no good. The Huffington Post was once a liberal's source for political information but is now water-logged by nonsense and fluff. Anyone can write for The Huffington Post. Anyone.
3. How bright is your "friend" who posted the link?
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| Sapiosexual: adj: (of a person) sexually attracted to intelligence in others. n: a person who is sexually attracted to intelligence in others. |
This checklist is far from perfect. Nothing on my blog claims to be stringent or pristine. It is, like me, a work in progress.
However, I am honest.
Many of these posts, write-ups, and articles are lies.
Over the weekend of Thanksgiving 2013, a man named "Elan" created a stir by 'live-Tweeting' his fight with a woman on a plane during a flight delay on Thanksgiving Day. After I read the opening few lines, I stopped. It was clearly bullshit.
It 'came out' that the fight and article, which included staged photos of notes written between Elan and his opposition, were lies. The truth emerged after the man received backlash for his treatment of the woman, who he'd made out to be some kind of selfish monster. As I said, I stopped reading the initial 'report' after a few lines so I'm not sure what Elan did to the woman, but that's irrelevant. The sad fact is this: if that article was a ruse, its follow-up could be as well. And who cares, really? Was this fight showing the world anything other than two examples of people with bad character?
Those of us who watched the film "Exit Through The Gift Shop" saw a hack; Mr. Brainwash was a self-proclaimed artist hailing from France. As the 'mockumentary' moves forward, we see the artist lacks conviction in anything other than creating middle-of-the-road versions of what Banksy and other street artists had already done. The Frenchman did it to make a name for himself...
And the film was directed by Banksy. As viewers, we are left wondering if the entire film was a joke and if so, at whose expense? Banksy's multi-tiered approach to "Exit" asks us to question the validity of everything we are told is art and information. As a twenty-something in America, I think it is a healthy place to rest, psychologically.
Are these poorly-executed online musings asking us to look deeper into our culture and explore the data we are served? Should we question them, or just read and accept the content as mere entertainment?
Let's say the countless posts are intended to broaden our view. If so, I take further issue.
A problem lies in the ease with which we share and re-share and post and re-post links. It's too easy to forward bad intel. And we are lazy. As a whole, we are not curious. We don't question the reliability of the information we are given especially when it comes in the form of "entertaining" Internet articles. Nothing is given a second comb-through. No one checks their sources and our Facebook feeds become incredulous and even libelous.
I propose a call to bring back the English language and revive formal publications.
Let's hold one another to a higher standard.
It is up to the intelligent minds of the world to use proper grammar. Jesse Pinkman was a fictitious character on a television show. He fumbled over language and was intentionally dumbed down by a writer who completed college and earned his position on AMC's Breaking Bad. Though Pinkman's words were "YEAH SCIENCE," I implore you to not let any sentence of yours end with "...because Science" if you'd like to be taken seriously. These neologic choices are not cute turns of phrase for originality's sake. Many people are just jumping on a terrible bandwagon.
e.e. cummings is a fine example of a man who took the time to understand the rules of the English language and the proper use of grammar and punctuation. In his work, he elected to do without many of these markings and guidelines. I don't know a lot of wordsmiths or poets via Facebook, off-hand, but the number of people with potential-e.e. cummings status doesn't quite stack up to the prolific
number of people posting on the Internet within the last hour (myself included).
Without shoving words like crusade down your throat, I'll ask that some of you join me. Start caring about the things you say and do. Start curating yourself.
Take the time to understand your work. Give a thorough fuck as to what it is you're writing. Back yourself up. Cite your sources. Let's allow the news to be the news again. Stop promoting bad writers. Stop funneling misinformation. Start offering up truth and beauty. I beg for the cessation to point-and-click-forward of cold grey bathwater.
Find out what turns you on and write it, paint it, film it, photograph it, or create some other medium with which to express it. Chances are you have wonderful things to say and show the world.
Note: this blog doesn't count as reputable. I'm a self-proclaimed idiot with standards.
