Cool!

(I meant that in reference to the two-buck chuck. As for the WaPo, meh.)

;^)

that's cool and all, but if i were twenty one, i think i'd hate that guy who wrote the article more.

:P

Meh, I don't care if it's WaPo. It's a good quote. The site in question is E2. Plus, it's just cool seeing my handle somewhere other than MeFi or E2 or MeCha.

*preens. slightly. then trips over a wire and plunges the server into darkness*

Loquacious, that's completely kickass! Congratulations!!

Nice quote. It's nice to be noticed for saying something good. Cool, loquacious.

It's also nice enough that the WASHINGTON POST felt that your line was worth quoting, without doing extensive background checks on you. (Or maybe they did...)

good on ya, mate! and knowing your commenting style, they must have cut a whole bunch out :)

awesome! *high fives loquacious*

Yeah, very cool. I'm meandering over to check out E2.

I got quoted in the Washington Post LOOOOONG ago. Admittedly it was about something retarded.

That's pretty cool, loquacious. Must be interesting to see yourself in there.

Awesome.

very cool! : >

Awesome!

very cool! Isn't it an odd feeling?

I got interviewed by the WaPo long long ago as part of my job running kids' programs for a museum: it was completely bizarre to see my name identified as "expert". Yeah. Me. Expert? In what? In a blinding flash of revelation I realized that there were NO EXPERTS ANYWHERE, NO SUCH THING - just people interviewed by the Washington Post & identified as such.

Ha. You're nothing until you've been interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

nice.

Congrats loq!

seanboy: Also cool. Wow! I know one of the other people quoted in that article.

[FILL IN ANY SITE NAME HERE] is the way the internet was supposed to be. [It] is a reference collection, a novel that writes itself, poetry that reads itself, and the shiny toy that never grows dull. It is the potential to exceed the sum of its parts.

MeTa, MoTa, Fark, Slashdot, Kos, LGF, drkoop, Zombo, YetiGames, ArmageddonOrNot... they all fit...

Triple-hyper w00t for the quote, but that article is one of the more vapid, naive things I've read in a long time. The following sentiment could be applied to any generation that grew up in a capitalist, consumerist society or system:

This kind of collective identity (which is a kind of anonymity, if you think about it) is my generation's reaction to having been spoon-fed advertising and having had identities marketed to us. We've been led to believe that to be homogenous and fit into certain characteristics is safe and desirable. Even correct. Crudely put, culture jammers represent the way people my age feel about modern society: that its images don't relate to us; that we won't or can't engage with what we've been told we should be; and that all we can do to make ourselves heard is to twist these images back on themselves.

So you've "been led to believe that to be homogenous and fit into certain characteristics is safe and desirable. Even correct."? Really? Mercy. I had no idea how startlingly different life is for those seven years younger than me.

But it's okay, because he's candid and self-deprecating:

You can probably sense here that I'm struggling to say what it is that I mean, but that's precisely because the movement, such as it is, is undefinable.

Ah. I'll bet you're post-post-post-modern, too. Fair enough.

I actually strongly identify with that statement, and I know others in my age range do as well. Hitting puberty and growing up in the consumer hell of the 80s was terrifying - especially since my family was by no means wealthy, and considering where I grew up - an exceedingly materialistic and wealthy community. And so many lived beyond their means simply for image, for spoon-fed identity. Why?

Yeah, growing up sucks in general. As does advertising and crass consumer culture. And certainly, my family was wealthier than most of the world. I didn't need to have new, brand name, expensive clothes/products/whatever; I also didn't need to fit in.

But that's all hindsight I wish I had then. I wish I grew up somewhere more urban, or more rural. I wish I grew up somewhere that wasn't an endless procession of half-mile by half-mile blocks of suburban housing, all laid out on a grid, with perfectly same strip malls and grocery stores embedded in the corner of them every so often. I wish I grew up somewhere that wasn't such an entire facade from the beginning. I wish I grew up somewhere that wasn't positively Orwellian - or rather - Huxleyian in nature. But I didn't. And the only way I could see to struggle against it and react to it was to work with what I had, even if it meant destroying what little I had.

So I don't claim that it was a unique experience. All I know is what I went through personally, and I identify with and agree with that statement. I don't know if it was a critical mass of marketing, a lack of historical teaching in the schools, a lack of perspective, or what.

I do know that except for my family and what culture we had, the only culture I knew came in little factory-sealed plastic boxes and bags. Even supposed counter-culture there was (and is) bought and sold in truckload quantities.

I count myself lucky that I escaped with any sort of humility or perspective at all.

Wendell:

MeTa, MoTa, Fark, Slashdot, Kos, LGF, drkoop, Zombo, YetiGames, ArmageddonOrNot... they all fit...

Err, no. They don't. I wrote that specifically about everything2.com, and specifically about the organic, interconnected nature of E2's web of information. I wouldn't write that about MeFi, it's way too linear. Yeah, I'm taking your interpretation seriously/literally. But I need to state this. MeFi doesn't fit that description, much less fark.

But you can do anything at Zombo.com.