Empty Cage

So I’m off breaking the rules right now and reading other people’s blogs to figure out how “grown-ups” go about reporting their mundane lives like every second is action packed. I am, of course, starting to seriously consider lying to get an interesting blog. In fact, I’ve been planning for awhile the thought of a blog that is actually completely fanciful, but written completely seriously sort of like.

I talked to my pal Ghnugh from Mars the other day. Sheeeet. He says the food in Mongolia is terrible, and really, I’m not too shocked by this meaningful revaluation. Perhaps I am dead on the inside. In other news, I broke into the innermost vault at the Royal Bank of Canada to find all they store in there is bananas with seeds. Go figure right?

Etcetera. Etcetera. That was before I realised that I’m missing the point. These bloggers take themselves just as seriously as I do. I spend almost as much time as they do scraping together the little details of my life into something legitimately readable. For me its more an attempt to take stock of how sardonic my take on the world is before I start turning into a bleary angry mole person. That and if I ever want to write my best seller which I will totally post on the internet because that is the only publicity… man… I need all the practise I can get. (Whoops, my bad, taking a shot at the ‘Author Bloggers’ again). Here I am working on stopping my hate fest and I just can’t do it.

The problem is I am a totally schizophrenic blogger. Some days I want to be the ‘oh woe is me, this is my internet outlet, hear me whine’ writer then the next I’ve decided to be the ‘professional purpose driven, look I even have a mission statement’ reporter. Between those two comes the ‘hate filled everyone if stupid but me’ blog which usually has a perky review the next day. So, basically Empty Cage is a big huge steaming poo most of the time because I have no focus whatsoever.

Of course then I sit around thinking “Well, Jesus, I should just pick one and build me a niche” (preferably by violently clawing competition out of the niche and cuddling my blogger’s bottom in there). But then, I would need several other blogs to accommodate all of my mood swings, and really, I don’t update this (or my defunct livejournal) enough to legitimately need another blog. We happily return to square one.

I think my writer’s “voice” is best suited to a critical blog. My reviews and rants tend to be more interesting then when I try to make an interesting case for reading about my day, but even that is perilous because then you need to both have something to write about, as well as be in a constant state of either rage, disdain or both. And while this is usually the case for me I wouldn’t want to enragggggge any customers because I one day decided to mention how much I lovey-wuv my life. And by customers I mean readers, and by lovey-wuv I mean don’t hate.

At least I haven’t sold out and started paid-blogging yet. I can keep my goatee and indie scarf a few more months yet. Maaaaaaan. (More being mean to real bloggers — wheeee!) But maybe I should I could do with writing a comedic piece on some randomly selected keywords. Shit, maybe I need to stop.

What does all this circle talking mean? Mostly that we should be watching for me trying on different blogging hats for the next few weeks/months/years until people actually read my blog. Righto.

I’ve been part of the world internet community for a number of years now… six or seven at least. I’ve been a part of various groups and sects. From arbitrary fandoms to deep technical and philosophical groups I’ve been a participant a contributor and a creator, it comes with many years integrating yourself into a global culture. Something I have always been painfully aware of though is Internet Snobbery. That is, everyone on the internet looking down their nose at everyone else on the internet. And I’ve done it too.

I mean, let’s look at a few of the billion examples. Microsoft users and Apple users are really looked down upon by Linux users (not that Microsoft and Apple users really care, they are too busy looking down at each other). Lately I’ve been thinking of making my system a dual-boot, Ubuntu or Fedora and Microsoft Windows Vista (don’t get me going on the XP snobs, many of whom don’t even really know why they hate Vista) and almost all of the guides speak in such a pretentious way often adding in notes about how one should just ‘trash Microshit all together’

I’m sorry, I thought I googled ‘tutorial’ not ‘your incredibly immature and biassed opinion on why you hate Microsoft because they are successful’.

But that’s just one example, us webdesigners are the absolute worst for drawing lines in the sand and daring others to cross them, it’s like we’re trying to create some sort of artistic objective rather than the ideal where art is subjective, coding makes it really easy to quantify art, coupled with the fact that you can be totally unknown online makes people seem bolder and more able to say things that they would never dream of saying to someone’s face.

Like, I was swimming the internet and stumbled upon a group of tutorial comments meant for people who had any questions on the material, and someone asked a pretty standard (albiet a little dumb) question about the tutorial and the tutorial writer swooped down in a fit of rage and railed on the newbie for asking such a stupid question and several others rallied with the tutorial owner, until the website’s moderator stepped in… the best part of this story… the moderator was accused of ‘trying to start a flame war’ I mean… really. Maybe they were just done with people making someone new feel uncomfortable.

And I remember that feeling well from when I started web design. People with domains were on a high plateau of existence than those of who did not, and those who were hosted on someone else’s domain were at least higher than us Geocities kids. And how much HTML you knew versus page builder, and your graphics skills, your hit counter, your affiliates. And it was all but impossible to convince old websiters to affiliate with newbies and help given was often condescending and sarcastic. Everyone wants you to get better but no one would even dream of helping you.

It seems like everywhere you go online nothing is really good enough for everyone else.

I love review sites that do ‘unrequested reviews’ too. You know what I call that? Flaming. Plain and simple, you write a whole page detailing why someone else has a crappy page that no one asked for you are a flamer. And these are the people who whine when anyone sends them a one liner that says ‘your site sucks’.

Or maybe I’m just really tired and there is no spoon.

I got approved for the Magical Mystery Tour Fanlisting

And to Amber, you just need to take a leap of faith. If you fail go home, but no one will ever criticize you for trying. Or if they do I’ll chase them down with a beating stick, you are incredibly smart and creative, you did better than I ever did in school. Plus, just for shits and giggles I looked up how much a freelance webdesigner makes in New York and have decided you will be a millionaire. <333