This manifests in two ways. In the first way, I'll write an awful big thing. Nobody will reply, because it's too big, too poorly organised, and mostly waffle. People just don't care about what I have to say, because people don't know who I am. Who am I, indeed?
The second way this manifests is that I say a lot of things in quick succession. This could be a slough of emails eagerly sent off to Thom Yorke or the N64 mag mailbag when I was 12, or the torrential dribblings of my current twitter feed.
I really like twitter. I enjoy the freedom of being able to post something that I find funny, and then post another thing right away if I think it's just as funny. If I have ten things to write about in under 140 characters, I'll just post them all. Nobody will give a shit. People will ignore, skip past, and unsubscribe from my tweets when I do this.
So as life has went on, I've felt differently about this. At first, it was just disappointment. "Aw, Thom Yorke didn't send me a 1000 word email back." As I got older, it was undirected anger. "There's no fucking point in posting on this fucking livejournal when nobody fucking comments on it and all my 'friends' have hundreds of fucking comments." Then frustration. "Why can't I crack the formula that these other forumites are using to get so many interesting replies to their threads?"
It's not that I want the *most* replies. I'd quite like one or two. If I had 3-6 comments on every post I made here, that'd be great, but now I'm entering a new phase of reaction to this net-wide conspiracy to not talk to me: imitation.
See, when I talk to an editor via email, they talk in paragraphs of up to five words. I'll get emails like this:
"screens?"
and I'll send hundreds of words back to accompany the screen with. The editor probably reads them. They might even chuckle, or show the whole office, or tearfully print it off and pin it to the fridge when they get home. But they send back this:
^--- That right there. Nothing! It turns out, I needn't have looked farther than my own brother. That's what he does. You send him something funny, and his reaction is to sit at his computer and go; "Heh." It's more sincere that writing 'lol' and sending that back at me, and it's certainly laconic to say absolutely fuck all.
So what have I started to do? Well, in the manner of a boy at a new school who finds that everyone is wearing a bowler hat, I've nervously began to follow suit.
Being a writer is a way of becoming Famous On The Internet. I just want someone to talk to, really, but if I write dilligently for websites and mags for the next ten years, I might just become Famous On The Internet too - I've certainly been given higher accolades by extremely kind writers in my age group.
Being Internet Famous takes a certain type of performance art. You need to say very little. You need to not get back to people right away. You need to look at your email drafts and heartlessly snip out every plea for validation, every weak joke, every scrap of small-talk. You need to think very carefully before you do anything. You need to restrain all of your output.
What really bothers me is that most of the people I've profiled to come to this conclusion are actually just doing what they do and not thinking about it. Craig Pearson posts cat videos because he likes cats, and he links Lily Allen songs because he likes Lily Allen. If I act naturally, you get this:
What I need to do is restrain myself. I need to become a disciplined and controlled writer who never farts and can't have his beans touch his potatoes. I need to ignore the odd email. I need to stop myself from typing that essay-like reply.
You know, I was talking with someone last week or so. She mentioned that she always had to have the last word. I couldn't help but think how utterly different my own imperative is. If I have the last word, that means that whatever I've said is unworthy of reply. If I have the last word, I've been left hanging.
Theer is only one option left to me: internet douchery.
[Continue reading]