A Blogging World

At what point in time did blogging become the new thing? When did everyone decide they need a blog to show off their impeccable music taste, fashionably forward ideas, or quasi-political rants? I have fallen in its trap evidently, and keep a blog I barely update where I posted three youtube videos a year ago. I guess this is just another rant about nothing, some meaningless words on the Internet that capture a moment in time. And, I guess that is something that blogs do for us -- capture a moment in time, but framed in a digitally-mediated-inter-connected world. After the angsty fourteen year old livejournal crowd turned eighteen and decided to stop posting pictures of their electroclash haircuts and striped shirts, they were left with one of those existential moments (and most likely picked up their tattered copy of The Stranger to read on the metro during this particular crisis): Where do I post all the awesome shit I find on the Internet?

A question for the ages indeed, almost up there with the "what does it all mean?" dilemma. But seriously, the Internet has become an art or a hipness contest. The cooler you are, the better and more stuff you know about on the Internet. It is like a secret club, and once you find out about gmail or soulseek, you got clearance. Think about the seemingly dark ages of aol accounts, and how lame you think those fools are who still have an @aol.com email address. Is the interweb merely a cool contest? And what does that coolness mean? Being Internet savvy? Having the biggest inbox quota allotted to a human being so you can save up to 1,487,987,765,875,237,836,278 emails? What is really being said when Tommy's blog is so popular because he has these really awesome never-before seen pictures of Bob Dylan? Or Amanda has this insane video archive on her youtube account (I always wonder how a lot of that stuff gets uploaded to begin with- who has that footage!??!??) At once the Internet has made knowledge, art, and culture so much more inclusive, yet also created a whole new kind of exclusively -- the distinction between the Internet savvy and the Internet incapable. And who are the Internet incapable? Usually, those who cannot afford fast interweb access or old folks who simply don't depend on the Internet for every bit of information they could possibly need and desire or little children. So are we creating an Internet community (no pun intended) of the bourgeoisie, who have to create culture via blogs instead of going out and and witnessing it for ourselves? Or, am I simply a Luddite and actually blogging is creating a new kind of archive? Personal cultural archives? I hope this is the case, and will sleep much better at night, thinking we are still creating something even if it is merely an archive paying homage to an older generation -- elder worship is a very common practice. And, I cannot very well call myself a Luddite while posting on a blog, therefore I propose we all be a little bit more inclusive and not so hard on the Internet un-savvy, because after all one day we will be ignorant on the newest form of technology, stuck using those prehistoric machines called computers. Viva la blog.