Jonathon Delacour the heart of things

Fresh out of trinkets

Steve Himmer posed some questions about writing for the web:

What are we we writing, and how are we writing it? What constitutes good writing on the web, and is it determined by the same criteria that determine good writing elsewhere?

Jeff Ward suggested that conventional web writing bore strong resemblances to the writing taught in school:

It’s academic. Sort of like speaking up in class with just the right comment at the right time, rather than providing a complex dissertation on a topic.

Sometimes I think that the discourse of blogs doesn’t really reach that high. It’s more like show-and-tell—like kindergarten. See the nice link I found? Admit it, show and tell is fun and most outgoing adults still enjoy it. Some blogs stake out that territory and stay there—it’s comfortable and non-threatening. To an extent, it’s academic too. Say hello to the class and show them something so they will like you. Link heavy blogs create persona through a process of selection, of valuation. It’s interesting that this is perhaps the longest surviving mode of blogging, which does not show much sign of fading—I remember when I started that this seemed mostly bush-league. It takes guts to put yourself out on the commons without any trinkets to sell.

Comparing the link+quote+comment weblog to show-and-tell made me laugh, even though I started out that way myself. I didn’t stay there for long—within my first week of blogging I’d written my first long form post. Thinking back to how I approached blogging in those early days, there was an element of wanting to please that’s less evident now (to me anyway). And it does make sense that this is the longest surviving mode of blogging given that it requires hardly any effort and even less risk.

Perhaps, though, Jeff’s analogy depends on defining show-and-tell such that the objects brought to class should be produced or created by a third party, that one’s own creations are not admissable. Such a definition would allow us to easily differentiate between the link+quote+comment weblog and the long form weblog that consists mainly of original writing.

I have friends with young children so I called a couple of them to ask whether original works were accepted at show-and-tell. Absolutely, they replied. My nine-year-old goddaughter summed up the intellectual property issues: “You can take anything you like.” Why, then, was I surprised to learn that a found object—such as a seashell plucked from the beach or a Barbie doll purchased at the mall—is treated with the same seriousness as something the child actually created, a ceramic coil pot or a handmade dress? Anyone with even a passing knowledge of art history could have pointed out that show-and-tell and weblogging lie squarely in the tradition established by Duchamp’s readymades.

It’s not clear from Jeff’s post whether he still thinks that link+quote+comment weblogs are mostly bush-league but it seems to me that we’re all engaged in show-and-tell, of one kind or another. I read both kinds, although—as my (soon to be extinguished?) blogroll indicates—I prefer the long form to the traditional weblog. I guess it’s like having two different friends: one who has fascinating ideas and another who knows interesting facts. You enjoy spending time with both of them while acknowledging that it’s a lot tougher out there on the commons, when you have no trinkets to sell.

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