Almost Famous

November 30, 2007 by Leave a comment

This blog has been getting a steady trickle of hits, most of them via Google searches featuring the words “second” and “life” somewhere (like “second life adverse events” or “how to find adult club in second life” – that guy must have been disappointed). Hardly anyone ever leaves a comment, so I’ve no idea what visitors think of the site, but I suspect most of them click away again pretty quickly.

Since it’s clear that there is no way that I’ll make money from Second Life by any means other than writing about it, I’m going to have to do something to improve the stickiness of this column.

Writing stuff that’s vaguely interesting would be a start I guess. I can see two ways that this column might develop an audience.

The first option would be a gonzo-journalism style travelogue, where I dot around the grid like a virtual Hunter S. Thompson, cataloguing the collision between the established order and the emerging counter-culture. The problem is that Second Life hasn’t been around long enough for a dominant culture to develop, so nobody is really pushing the boundaries, because there are no boundaries to push against. I guess I could contrast SL with real life, but my feeling is that SL is more of a complement to the existing social order than a threat to it, so there’s none of the sense of danger that would give the column some edge. It’s possible that I’m underestimating how liberating the SL experience can be for people though, and it might be more revolutionary than I think. There is probably some mileage in exploring that further.

The alternative model for the blog would be a character-based episodic narrative, something like “Tales of the City”. To make that work I’d have to find some sort of vibrant SL social scene and immerse myself in it, and I’m not sure that I have the patience for that, if such communities even exist. I don’t think my writing skills are up to it anyway.

Even if I do build up a readership, there would still be the problem of turning hits into revenue, something that has defeated smarter business brains than mine. Advertising perhaps, or syndication, particularly to non-internet media. Maybe Rolling Stone would bankroll me while I did some in-depth research, like John Travolta in “Perfect”. They printed a big article on Second Life just a few months ago though, and anyway it’s not like I’m Lester Bangs or anything, so maybe not.

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Jerome update

August 28, 2007 by Leave a comment

Jerome hadn’t posted in his blog for a couple of weeks, causing me some concern, since if it turned out he had died my light-hearted comments about his health were going to look in rather poor taste. However he’s back now, and looking fairly fit in the photo he’s posted. No word on his scan results or job search though. Doesn’t he know that people are worrying about him?

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My friend Jerome

August 13, 2007 by Leave a comment

Having jokingly linked to Jerome’s Unemployment Blog yesterday, I now find myself worrying about the poor guy. Not only is he out of work, but he’s sick too. Luckily he seems to have health insurance. His doctor sent him for a CT scan, which made me think that Jerome must be really ill, until I remembered that in the US the structure of the health care system encourages lots of expensive investigations, whether they’re needed or not. Here in the UK, with our socialised medicine, we only order scans for people who we think might actually have something seriously wrong with them.

Anyway, Jerome’s scan was clear (apart from some slight abnormality which he is going to get an MRI scan for – and Americans wonder why their health insurance is so expensive) so his doctor thinks he probably has a gastric motility problem. Obviously it’s difficult to diagnose things over the internet, but I would have guessed that from his original description of the symptoms, thus saving thousands of dollars, not to mention all the radiation he will have got from the CT scan. I would probably have ordered the ultrasound to exclude gallstones though.

I feel like I really know Jerome now, to the extent that I feel able to second-guess his doctor about what might be wrong with him. This despite the fact that he or she is presumably a reputable professional who will have carefully examined Jerome and considered all the relevant data before coming up with a rational plan of investigation, whereas all I have to go on is some scraps of information and my ill-informed prejudices about American health care (which I got from watching ER and Nip/Tuck). Completely absurd of course, but like I said before, the internet is great at producing the illusion of intimacy. I don’t know if Jerome will find my interest in his health a bit creepy, though I would hazard a guess that yes, he just might. That’s what happens if you put details of your personal life on the web for all to see though.

And, Jerome, if you’re reading, listen to what your doctor says, not what some stranger on the internet tells you.

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Some encouragement

August 12, 2007 by 5 Comments

There is some evidence that I am not the only reader of this blog – it gets a few views from people referred by Google, though most of them seem to be searching for something else. I also got a supportive comment from the writer of the blog Surface Earth (have a look, and see if you can figure out what it’s about), but he or she came across this page by accident too. My Technorati authority rating remains stuck at 1, with a ranking of 3,915,745.

Luckily, like most bloggers, I don’t need much encouragement to keep sharing my thoughts with the world. The main problem is finding time to sit down in front of the computer long enough to complete a worthwhile post. It would be a lot easier if I was unemployed.

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Blog Idol

August 12, 2007 by Leave a comment

I’m generally too much of an intellectual snob to lower myself to watching reality TV, but I will admit to making an exception for shows like X-Factor. Not the later stages, where they get the people who actually have some ability and ruthlessly extinguish any trace of originality or individuality, but the first few episodes, where the experts tour the country sifting through the hopeful masses to uncover some hidden nuggets of talent.

During these audition shows the cameras will invariably home in on several would-be stars, each one eager to proclaim their absolute faith that they are going to be chosen, because “I really want this, I’ve always wanted it.” We then see their acts, which reveal that they would be well advised to direct their creative urges into other projects. They are told as much, kindly by the kind judge, brutally by the brutal judge. Afterwards some appear defeated and disillusioned, but most retain their belief that, one day, they will make it to the top, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I used to be sure that the program producers included these segments for their comedic value; that we were being invited to laugh at the losers who were deluded enough to think that a lame impersonation of Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears would be their passport to the golden realm of celebrity. Now I’m not so certain. Maybe we’re actually being asked to admire the way these aspiring stars remain true to their dreams in the face of the world’s cruel indifference.

That would certainly be in line with the general trend in our culture to favour emotion over reason, and to believe that the key to achieving a goal is to desire it with sufficient fervour.

Nowhere is the line between desire and reality more blurred than on the internet, particularly the wild frontier of Web 2.0. The barrier between inspiration and publication is so insignificant that anyone with any sort of half-baked idea can present their work to the world. This has generally been felt to be a good thing, representing as it does a major democratisation of the creative process, but the absence of external editorial control does call for a bit self-restraint, a quality that is not always associated with bloggers. So while there is a lot of interesting material in the blogosphere, there is also a not inconsiderable amount of self-indulgence.

I’d have to admit that this blog is not a great advert for the medium, consisting as it does mainly of my inconsequential thoughts on random topics, with very little that pertains to its ostensible subject. I could try to excuse this with reference to my other commitments, but the truth is that, like the X-Factor hopefuls, I am guilty of mistaking a wish to do something for the ability to carry it off. I still think the basic idea is good, and I am going to try to approach it a bit more methodically. Expect a few more weak columns before I get my act together though.

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How long is too long?

July 21, 2007 by 1 Comment

In an early days of this column, I wrote a post comparing the experience of starting a blog to falling in love. Well now I’m at that stage of the relationship where the initial ardour has cooled, and I haven’t been in touch for a while. I’m wondering if I’ve left it too long, and if calling now is going to be so horribly awkward that I should just forget about it.

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Formal confusion

June 26, 2007 by Leave a comment

Avid readers of this column (that is me, and that guy in Japan, who is probably actually a computer program) will have noticed that I haven’t really decided what form these articles should take. I’m torn between the classic blog model, with daily updates on whatever happens to be passing through my mind, or something more akin to a newspaper column, well thought-out and researched, and appearing every week or so. Thus far I have been turning out a sorry hybrid of ramblings that are both infrequent and ill-considered.

Part of the problem is that I do have a fairly demanding real life, though with some more discipline I could probably increase my output a bit.

Anyway, there are two topics I could go for this week; the MySpace/Facebook class divide, and the addictiveness or otherwise of video games. I do want to do a bit more reading and thinking before coming up with an opinion though, so look out for something in a couple of days.

And what about the original Second Life project? That’s still stalled, until I get around to ordering the parts I need to upgrade my box. Then of course I’ll need to find time to fit them, and do a new Linux installation, and before I even start that I’ll have to do a long-overdue backup… Before the end of the summer is what I’m aiming for.

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A bigger picture

June 22, 2007 by Leave a comment

Like the majority of web surfers, I tend not to range freely over the ever-widening ocean of information that is the internet, but stick close to the familiar waters of a few favourite sites. A frequent port of call for me is the Onion AV Club. I like the way that its writers treat popular culture as something deserving serious consideration, without sliding into humourless pretentiousness. (And it also carries Savage Love, for my money the most consistently fascinating advice column out there).

It was a column in the AV Club that steered me towards this blog, written by a woman grappling with the complexities of being one partner in a polygamous relationship. It’s not as interesting as it sounds though, since the woman in question is not a real person, but a fictional character in the TV show Big Love. The blog entries themselves are a quite well-done pastiche of the sort of self-absorbed musing that all compulsive blog-readers will be familiar with, but what really gives the site verisimilitude are the replies left by visitors. I’d love to think that these comments are genuine, but I’m pretty sure that they’re made-up too. It’s all essentially indistinguishable from the real thing though, and illustrates how simple it is to create a false sense of familiarity in cyberspace.

There are plenty of other examples of characters taking on a life beyond the bounds of their fictional worlds of course, but this is usually driven by fans, and it feels a bit manipulative when it’s done by a big media corporation.

This case is fairly harmless though, compared with some of the fake blogging that’s around. Katie Couric’s video blog, for example, which was at the centre of a minor scandal a few months back, when it turned out that a touching personal story about Katie’s first library card had been lifted from a column in the Wall Street Journal. Personally I wasn’t too bothered by the plagiarism, nor by the barely-surprising revelation that Ms Couric doesn’t script her own journal entries, but delegates the task to a staffer. What does annoy me is the thinking behind the blog, the idea that, if we can be fooled into thinking that we have some sort of personal relationship with a complete stranger, we might be more prepared to believe that the stuff she is paid to read out on the TV is actually the truth, rather than sanitised corporate propaganda.

For the connected citizen in the technologically advanced world, the amount of social interaction that takes place in cyberspace is increasing at at accelerating pace. This is especially true of the communication that mediates the multiple relationships between individuals, the institutions of civil society, and the state. There are many positive aspects of this, not least the widening of the concept of community beyond traditional geographical and cultural boundaries. How can we be sure of the integrity of this communication though? How do we know that our emotions are not being subtly manipulated, by state or corporate interests, for their own ends?

It could be argued that anyone who has grown up watching TV – that is practically everyone in the developed world under the age of 60 – should be able to tell the difference between a real personal connection and the fake sincerity of a newsreader, but I think that underestimates the extent to which the internet as a medium of communication can replicate the experience of true intimacy. Even the most cyber-aware of us haven’t really had the chance to develop the psychological tools that would let us judge how much we can trust our own feelings when it comes to online interaction, and most of the time we don’t even think about it, or are at best only dimly aware of the possibility that our reactions may be unreliable.

I don’t know if studying cyber-interaction at an individual level will answer any of the broader questions about how society and politics are being affected by the changes in patterns of social communication that are developing as we live more of our lives online, and how we should react to those changes, but it seems as good a place to start as any. Self-knowledge can only help us fulfil our responsibility to be vigilant cyber-citizens.

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Moving on up

May 31, 2007 by Leave a comment

I’m evidently going up in the WWW – SL Shrink now has an authority rating of 1 on Technorati, resulting in an impressive 1176061 place jump in its ranking, and making me officially the 2121799th most influential person on the internet.

I followed the link to find out who my new friend was, and it turns out to be Metaverse.jp, a Japanese blog offering “virtual world information”, mostly in japanese of course, so I can’t see why they’ve linked here. I’d like to think it’s because they admire my elegant prose, but I suspect that there’s some sort of automated data aggregation going on. I’m not complaining though; a few more links like that and I’ll be in the top one million

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Political Blogging

May 30, 2007 by Leave a comment

I consider myself to be a bit of an internet veteran; I can remember 14.4 modems, bulletin boards, Usenet, and how exiting it was to see the first web pages, with their plain text on grey backgrounds. I still think ASCII art is pretty cool. So I’d have to admit that I initially approached the whole Web 2.0 thing with an old-timer’s conservatism, and I started reading blogs at a relatively late stage.

What first got me into the blogosphere was my interest in US politics. Around the time of the last presidential primaries there was a lot of talk about how bloggers were going to change the whole nature of political discourse, by bypassing the sclerotic mainstream media and engaging in polemical warfare reminiscent of the golden age of pamphleteering in the 18th century. Intrigued by this promise of a new style of politics, I started looking at the Blog Report feature on Salon, and following the talking points as they bounced around the blogs of the left and right, and I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s certainly entertaining, but not always particularly enlightening.

Now I live in western Europe, Scotland to be slightly more precise, and so perhaps I don’t really appreciate how bad the TV networks and newspapers are in the US, but I have never felt that blogs add a great deal to the experience of being a politically active citizen. It’s not that they don’t contain useful information, just that it’s very hard to make any sense of just how important, in political terms, any given story is. Although events in the real world are (usually) the trigger for whatever debate is exciting bloggers at any given moment, the self-referential nature of the medium almost always means that a sense of perspective is quickly lost.

Here’s an example: Glenn Greenwald’s column from a couple of days ago. Now Greenwald is a good writer, he’s living the dream by getting paid to blog for a reputable media organisation and his politics are not too objectionable (though personally I’m well to the left of him), but this piece is just nonsense. Over 1200 words (words that could have been devoted to any one of a myriad of unreported stories) to bring us the “news” that right-wing bloggers don’t always tell the truth, and can sometimes use objectionable language. Greenwald tries to make some overarching point about the “right-wing noise machine”, but it doesn’t really wash, and just exposes how badly he misjudges the resonance that such stories have within the mass of the population. Five minutes spent talking to real people on the street would set him right. The irony is that Greenwald and other left bloggers continually (and correctly) criticise the Beltway media for existing in a world of their own, but seem not to realise that the blogosphere is in many ways equally self-contained.

I’m not saying that blogs never break big stories, just that the political impact of such issues is best judged by how they are debated on the streets and in homes and workplaces, not by the blog entries they inspire.

A bit off-topic there; no Second Life, not really any psychology, unless you want to analyse the meaning of a blog post about the irrelevance of blog posts. It’s because I’m no further forward with getting the SL linux client to work – I didn’t notice that the blog I thought would be helpful hadn’t been updated in ten months. Look out for more posts about blogging, maybe something about social networking sites.

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