The following misanthropic musings were made by gaping void creator Hugh McLeod. He is , somewhat ironically, another source inspiration and sometimes information for this weblog. He is, of course, at a whole different level web 2.0 social pecking order than I am, but he raises some interesting challenges to the ongoing creation of this weblog.
10 things I hate about web 2.0 via
gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" by hugh macleod on 6/6/08
1. Reconciling the huge gap between how interesting and important you tell your clients it all is, versus how interesting and important you actually find it all yourself.
Since this weblog has no clients and no money (except for 14 cents for charity through Squidoo), this is not a problem. Sometimes others find the sites found here interesting and sometimes they don't. It only deals with what I find interesting, even if nobody else does.
2. The endless train of online armchair quarterbacks endlessly trying to engage you with endless rounds of mental masturbation.
This is admittedly annoying. From a self-reflective point of view, spending a good portion of my free time typing this, well mental masturbation might stick but it is for the most part solitary and there is no attempt to pass myself off as an expert.
3. The same usual suspects whining endlessly on about the same usual suspects.
This weblog actually jumps around a lot, presumedly making it less viable as a potential money maker. The question for this weblog is whether and how to deal with past issues. Once a post is created on say bio-fuels is there any reason to worry about doing more? For whatever reason, I sometimes feel like I should be.
4. The idea that spouting endless hyperbole about the latest doohickey widget is actually an interesting, compelling and worthy way for a grown man to spend his free time.
Sprouting no, but having others sprout, especially through video - that's different.
5. The well-intentioned but misguided belief that anonymous loser douchebags are actually entitled to an opinion.
One lonely anonymous loser douchebag arguable, a million anonymous loser douchebags that's your market.
6. People at conference panels, pretending that the only reason they're attending is to offer valuable insight to their fellow man, as opposed to just pimping their wares and/or scouting for consulting gigs.
This is true of all conferences, not just Web 2.o. You can, however, get valuable insights from your fellow man even when they are just pimping their wares and/or scouting for consulting gigs.
7. The pervasive use of the term, "2.0" to describe anything other than internet software e.g. "Love 2.0", "Women 2.0", "Breakup 2.0", "Food 2.0", "Religion 2.0", "Music 2.0", "Poetry 2.0", yak yak yak...
There should be a term that describes the opposite of innovation, which would be what most of us are doing most of the time.
8. Any blogger with higher traffic than my own.
OK, this one is definitely not a worry.
9. The popular but mistaken belief that there is a vast, unstoppable army of people in the world who actually care about this shit.
No, there are just a whole lot of people who care about a whole lot of different shit.
10. The sophomoric conceit that "The Conversation" is two-way. To quote Fran Leibowitz, "The opposite of Talking is not Listening. The opposite of Talking is Waiting".
These are, at a minimum, all two-way conversations. What's different is that everybody is carrying on their own two-way conversation with themselves, adding others just serves to scale up, sometimes exponentially. Placing your words upon the screen and judging your words by your own standards is a form of self-reflective communication. Most times we passively invite others to join in. The fact that they do not does not stop the conversation.
Finally, while mediocrity may be a hallmark of the untold masses, there is never any intention to allege moral failings in others.
