March 14, 2013

Like Flies on the Windshield

This poor, neglected blog is being peppered with spam comments.  Every time I get an e-mail notifying me of a new comment, I get a little excited that perhaps there are still people stopping by, and that perhaps I should write again.  Instead, I'm provided a link where I can apparently buy cheap pharmaceuticals.  No thanks.

The internet as a whole is becoming boring, everyone repeating the same jokes or arguing over the same things.  It doesn't matter if you've super-imposed your unfunny joke on top of a picture we've all seen a thousand times, there is still nothing amusing about it.  It pains me to see how incredibly popular this is; it is a slap in the face of anyone who has struggled to find an audience on the grounds of trying to be original.  Creativity is dead.

When blogging was still popular, the internet was a much more interesting place; regular people had the freedom and latitude to write whatever they wished, and the loose social networks that built around them were vibrant and fun.  I miss a lot of that.  Today, social networking is being shoved down our throats but only because a detailed "social graph" is a valuable marketing tool; there is nothing natural about the friend suggestions that pop up, and I don't believe people start actual friendships on that basis.

Learning today that Google Reader is shutting down is also disappointing.  I'm sure that the handful of real people who comment on this post will have found it from their old RSS feeds, just as I have found the occasional blips of content on blogs I used to enjoy in the past.  The technology was there to provide "really simple syndication" - to allow anyone to develop their own content and publish it in a way accessible to the masses.  The emphasis today is no longer on publishing, but on sharing.  140 characters at a time, leave the actual content to the media.  RSS is now a forgotten technology, and thus the unique content it exposed will also fade away in time.

The internet is becoming boring, repetitive, and predictable.  Like the decline of television, all over again.

3 comments:

  1. No! They can't close down Google Reader. I still use it every day. :(

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  2. Assalaamu'alaykum

    Perhaps it's optimal to write when you don't expect immediate receipt of your work. Perhaps in the silence, your thoughts will be the clearest. And even if it's not fueling thoughts of other minds at this point, maybe it will freshen and rejuvenate your own. And if Allah should will, whomever is to benefit from it will eventually consume it.

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