Saturday, September 11, 2010

So maybe I'm not cut out to be a blogger...

I recently heard that things like facebook were making young people narcissistic. Really?!?! Wasn't it just a few years ago we were giving everyone trophies because kids had no self-esteeem? You know what people? Kids have a lot more strength and character than we "adults" think. Good. Let them be narcissistic. It's good for them. This is a narcissistic marketplace they are entering into when they are out there in the world.
Hence blogging... an ode to narcissism. Some of us feel that our thoughts are just SO clever that the whole world clearly wants to read them. I like to peruse the writing jobs on craigslist. It's amazing to me how many of them are for bloggers. Have you ever looked at lists of blogs?? There are like billions. There are also people who follow tons of them regularly. I think I used the RSS button once and never figured out where stuff was going. Maybe that explains the weird column in my inbox??? Nope, just checked it, Apple put it there so I can always see what's available to buy from apple. It then refreshes the next day to show me the new thing and how yesterday's thing is out of date. But with all these bloggers... they're still looking for more??? It amazes me what they are looking for too. So many of them say that they are looking for "sleek," "upscale," "witty" writing for an "exclusive and hip audience." Well pin a rose on your damn nose because you must be one of 300 similar blog sites. Maybe these sites are still looking for people because, like me, aspiring writers who did not grow up with blogging and facebook are just not narcissistic enough. How do I know if my writing is "sleek"? That doesn't even make sense!!! Shiny horses are sleek. My slender, shiny dog is "sleek." I know what they are trying to say, but if you think about it enough, it's stupid. That's right, although I pride myself on having a large lexicon (which is also the name of a wine! that bottle is a keeper, even if it ends up tasting like crap) sometimes we need to use the most simple adjective and sometimes that adjective is "stupid." So why is it that words like that intimidate me so much that I stop at perusing these jobs rather than applying? I feel like I might not be "hipster" enough to join the "blogosphere." Oh yeah. Apparently this is a word. This is a word that describes this network in the "interwebs" (another word I don't fully get) that involves frequent bloggers and their blogs- I think. How do these people have time to work, sleep EAT??? How can they keep on top of all of these blogs, write their own, and find out about the politics of which they write?? Hell, I clearly can't update this more than once a month and all I write about it craigslist and facebook! Apparently that is the bulk of my "interwebs" experience!

Before I completely trash modern society and start quoting my grandpa whose favorite saying is "In the good old days when times were tough" let me say that I think the modern-day narcissism is a great thing. I'm glad kids want to write stuff. Yes ELA (that's middle school for 'English class') teachers, texting, tweeting, blogging, and facebooking are all writing! They may not have an intro, a conclusion and three body paragraphs, but kids still need to put a bit more thought into something they are writing as opposed to something they just say. It's a good thing! I'm glad kids feel the need to tell the world that they "like" the page entitled "I hate it when people talk behind your back for no reason just because you got on the cheerleading team and they didn't". Is that so different from the "Mean people suck" patches we sewed on our backpacks? Maybe I can learn from this narcissistic younger generation. That's it, I'll keep putting my thoughts out there into the "blogosphere" and maybe someone will read them! No, OF COURSE people will read them!

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