NARMOD OANRMD DNAORM RANDOM

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

I've been reading things you've written for a pretty good while now and it's been really rewarding to see your progression as a writer, Brad.

thank you dude, thank you so much.

[Babar]

Check out this Wikipedia article, guys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial

[Chet]

anyway, probably the harshest criticism i've received about my writing came from a person in these forums, but it also served as kind of a necessary wake up call. it's also something that i think about right before i start writing anything. it's hard, i guess.

EDIT: this second paragraph i wrote was dumb and now it is gone.

i don't totally agree with g.i. that "being bashed is orders of magnitude better than being ignored," i don't really have the constitution to deal with consistent bashing--this year i've managed to tangle with tao lin and the dude from titus andronicus and these were the worst weeks. this is probably just my experience of things though.

fuck this guy. for as much as i like his records, he is annoying as fuck.

[Thermofusion]

Check out this Wikipedia article, guys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial

Hooray for google cache

[Ashley]

That's to say I think the trend you're talking about is real, and I think that writers like Tao Lin, Marie Calloway, et al. are basically only vehicles of self-promotion, but the self they promote is completely vaccous, signifiers hanging like clothes on an invisible man, the abyss personified. I do feel this gets awfully close to hipster strawman territory but it seems to me to be a very real trend in the so-called internet generation and the types of writers, bloggers and internet personalities that haunt Tumblr and the, um, I don't know, the post-LiveJournal internet that is overly earnest and totally self-important and narcassistic and devoid of any thoughts that do not directly affect only themselves.

I worry about this a lot, but then I think it's best not to think about it.

[Babar]

Check out this Wikipedia article, guys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial

Hooray for google cache

It works if I just refresh then stop very quickly. I love the statement by Wikipedia though, best website on the net.

[elpollodiablo]

That's to say I think the trend you're talking about is real, and I think that writers like Tao Lin, Marie Calloway, et al. are basically only vehicles of self-promotion, but the self they promote is completely vaccous, signifiers hanging like clothes on an invisible man, the abyss personified. I do feel this gets awfully close to hipster strawman territory but it seems to me to be a very real trend in the so-called internet generation and the types of writers, bloggers and internet personalities that haunt Tumblr and the, um, I don't know, the post-LiveJournal internet that is overly earnest and totally self-important and narcassistic and devoid of any thoughts that do not directly affect only themselves.

I am totally in agreement. I was thinking, last night before bed, of all of the differences between this generation of American writers and ones who've gone before, and trying to locate the precise reasons that this one seems so, *so* awful. It's partly narcissism, for sure, though that's nothing new. I'd be willing to believe it's partly social media that's to blame. But this model of the artist living in public and responding to Google alerts about himself makes me hate art, even if at some level it's part of their total "project." If that's going to come in the package, they should probably at least write half-decent novels.

[elpollodiablo]

Obviously that's overdawn and -simplified, but I just woke up 15 minutes ago the hell you want from me

[jebreject]

I think Wikipedia forgot to blackout their mobile site

[mountmccabe]

That was on purpose. They also tell you how to get around their block for the main site.

[davy]

That's to say I think the trend you're talking about is real, and I think that writers like Tao Lin, Marie Calloway, et al. are basically only vehicles of self-promotion, but the self they promote is completely vaccous, signifiers hanging like clothes on an invisible man, the abyss personified. I do feel this gets awfully close to hipster strawman territory but it seems to me to be a very real trend in the so-called internet generation and the types of writers, bloggers and internet personalities that haunt Tumblr and the, um, I don't know, the post-LiveJournal internet that is overly earnest and totally self-important and narcassistic and devoid of any thoughts that do not directly affect only themselves.

[jebreject]

Dear everyone, my misspelling of "narcissistic" is driving me crazy. Please edit your posts to fix it.

Also I can't see that photo from my work computer. Going to assume it's a picture of the internet eating itself or something

EDIT: Actually, I'm going to assume that it's a picture of a mirror, or else maybe a black kettle.

[jebreject]

TAO LIN TAO LIN TAO LIN TRY TO STEP TO ME MOTHERFUCKER

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

davy's image ain't workin' for anyone i assume.

[edison]

It's working fine for me!

[edison]

But I prefer to have all of you making assumptions than reveal what it is.

[davy]

davy's image ain't workin' for anyone i assume.

Fixed. Jeb's first guess was the closest.

[elpollodiablo]

TAO LIN TAO LIN TAO LIN TRY TO STEP TO ME MOTHERFUCKER

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

anyway, i agree with jeb as much as i think "the abyss personified" is kind of an interesting aspiration. feel like i may be a reactionary against this new wave of young people's writing, like i can't get with the hip-hop and the heavy rock, just sounds like great crashing noise to me. but it is kind of like that. it's boring, inert expression that is grossly aware of the reaction it will produce. it's incredibly cynical, which is made worse by how they project themselves as some kind of anti-cynicism parade (see: the tao lin post, emily gould) whose work is indistinguishable from their lives, and to criticize their work is to dismantle their personhood.

[Dick]

I'm feeling that 'there's a whole nother internet I wasn't even aware existed feeling' again.  This happens more and more often when you guys are linking stuff.

To be fair my main activities on the internet these days are, in order:
1. Reading here
2. Paying my bills
3. Getting myself worked up over the ongoing Chartalism/MMT vs. Austrian/Goldbuggist debates in the b-list econ blogosphere
4. Writing about Marxism and then deleting it

[jebreject]

TAO LIN TAO LIN TAO LIN TRY TO STEP TO ME MOTHERFUCKER

OH I SEE WE HAD THE SAME IDEA, DAVY

[fishjim]

BAoH, I just read Tao Lin's little speech to himself, and then your piece. My gut agrees with yours re: the Calloway thing, but mainly what I like is how your words rub together. That's the kind of sensibility I respond to, and you've got Tao Lin whipped in that column.

Still, I'm not convinced responding to the callow ways of the inter-jizz is the best use of your ear. Whatever. I'm too new to LPTJ to have followed your growth as a writer, but you're aging marvelously. Whatever you're doing, keep it up. You get burned, just scrape that flesh off and fight on.

YOU TOO ANNE

Cocks for two!

 

[jebreject]

If you say his name three times, he might appear, but if you quote someone saying his name three times he will definitely appear, or at the very least write a 50,000 word Tumblr post about it.

to criticize their work is to dismantle their personhood.

Yeah, this is the exact feel I got from his response to your (honestly, pretty benign and inoffensive) OG. I wonder if this guy was big on LiveJournal before he began his career as a Tumblr-personality masquerading as an author.

[davy]

So...did Cory Doctorow start all this shit or what?

For some reason I want to implicate Neil Gaiman as well.

[jebreject]

Re: The Guy Whose Book Davy Posted a Picture of, M really likes that book a lot and is intrigued by the guy and I don't really get it, but I guess that if anywhere there is a generational gap between the two of us due to our age difference, it's there. & I feel Brad on the whole "kids these days with their hippin' and their hoppin" aspect of it, in that it makes me wonder if I just don't Get It or whatever, but then I reconsider and no, I do in fact get it, and it's just insipid and disgustingly self-aware and it's like the whole world is a reality show or something, and I realize, This Is What It's Come To, this is the natural progression, this is culture eating itself and I want to hurl a hammer through Big Brother's big glowing face.

Oh also when Tao Lin compared Marie Calloway to Lydia Davis? Wow.