Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Proposed Moratoria for 2009

There are a couple holdovers from last year

  • "I'm so tired of ____" - This complaint structure has come up a lot in the criticism and meta-criticism that forms much of the blog world in which I live.* One example: Recently I saw it in an impassioned give-and-take (which I can't find now) about the Oxford American music issue, that the OA gives "Southern" a rather liberal scope, particularly in regards to Neko Case's inclusion in the most recent music issue. I do have a dog in this hunt as a contributor to this same issue, writing about The Residents whose Southern ties are easily considered thin, and possibly even non-existent, but fair enough, it's a topic worth exploring, and I was following until I got to a comment that was "I get so tired of changing the parameters of Southern for their own purposes." Again, I can, to a degree, sympathize with the sentiment and wholly respect the accusations, but the "tired" part kills it for me. Are you required to accept these re-parameterizations? Do they burden you in that you are forcedto read each one that occurrs? I suspect the OA, beloved in some circle as it might be, is not required reading for anyone, and, in my experience as a writer for these contentious music issues, it in no way poses itself as definititve on the wobbly borders of "Southern" and maybe the reverence it is given sets it up for derision, and yeah, go for it, redefine Southern yourself then. I promise you the South is amorphous enough to fit your paradigm too, but if someone doing so makes you tired, you might need to upgrade your life to include some real problems. Being tired of someone's opinion who you are not forced to agree with or even acknowledge smacks of complaining that you are getting poor customer service from your cultural analysis providers and that you would like to speak to the manager. Well guess what, we're all the manager now.
  • The word douche - when used as a derogatory descriptor of a person. This is a holdover from last year that still won't go away. Specifically, its the Nick Sabin is a Douche bumper sticker I see on this one car everyday at work that gets to me. You are still that upset about this? That an egomaniac rich guy backed out of an offhand promise for more money? Really?
  • Really? - This handy little argument-ender is here is to remind me to quit using it so much. Like the first item, it should not be so incredulous to me that others feel differently about things, preposterous as their stupid opinions might be.
  • Facebook junk - I really like Facebook on a philosophical basis (blogging as an expression of current physical, emotional status) and from an interface perspective, but man, I don't want any trees or teddy bears or zombie bites, nor do I want to join a group celebrating how much I hate Crocs (they are great for kids) or even the end of the Bush administration (I celebrate it through my dogged persistence). I am also annoyed when you get included on someone's group message, even if you don't respond, you get every reply to the thread ever.
* notice how I avoided the word blogosphere without putting it on the list. I am hoping that term dies out due to atrophy rather than direct attack, because pruning it would only cause it to be replaced with a worse term.

1 comment:

  1. I'm not into the FB snowballs, etc. either, though I did do that 25 questions thing. I grumbled while I did it and then got insulted when I didn't get responses.

    Here is my theory about "Really?": After 8 years of Bush in office, the population found itself constantly astonished and incredulous and speechless, the only word they could muster was, "Really?" And now "Really?" has worked its way into America's linguistic psyche with words such as "like" and "whatever."

    Regardless of my theory, when I realized how condescending "Really?" sounds, I tried to stop using it. Occasionally, it slips in, but man, I get so tired of hearing it. Really.

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