On Social Networking and Impersonality

Where once there were battle lines and territory markers, now there are only cross-feeds and re-posting. Put into more concrete terms, Social Networking sites have shifted from loyally supported communities to amalgamated rehashings of eachother. Somewhere along the way people lost the notion of having their own personal corner of the internet, and instead began striving for a broader audience. Now there are many people who not only post trite facts about themselves on one site--they Tweet it, and Status it, and Blog it, and any number of high-tech buzz verbs.

The first blog I ever tried was a LiveJournal account, and by choosing it I put myself in with a more purist crowd which championed content over personality in MySpace. This wasn't totally intentional--I just wanted to be part of the crowd, and viewing peoples' livejournals didn't require me to listen to their music. Looking back on the archives, there are only posts of any real substance months apart. The vast majority of the blog was taken up with Quizzes, Tests, and boring recounts of unevenful days. I remember asking a friend once why he never comments on my posts (even though I commented on his.) He responded with an insightful "Because I don't care about what you accomplished in Final Fantasy XI today." Thankfully I was able to move past the idea that the bland things of my life are more important than the bland parts of everyone else's lives.

What's the point of this? I think the majority of the internet either disagrees with me, or hasn't yet come to that conclusion. I don't think I'm the only one out there that only reads quizzes that other people post if I'm mentioned in them. The interesting thing here is that instead of trying to produce solid content which may engage their friends, people instead just try a new audience. There are plenty of tools available for the average person to post something, and then have it simultaneously posted on X different websites to try and fish comments from the populace.

As an unemployed person, I often go onto Craigslist.com and recently in the "Writing Jobs" tab I've seen advertisements for a person who is proficient enough to build up steam for their company over a bunch of different websites. This gives me the image of a man, hunched over his computer, and just typing the same garbage over and over onto any social media site that will have him. For some reason there's this idea that if you spit nonsense enough times in enough communities that someone will like you.

The moral of this story is that I wish people would try to just write more engaging content. A while back there was a big hubbub about Sports Bloggers because they could say anything they wanted...and people assumed that they were real reporters I guess. The reality is that the internet is a true meritocracy--if you write like a 5th grader, you'll get about as much attention. I can only aspire to be a good enough writer that I'm engaging enough that I can get comments without random name drops.

Define Hypocritical: Cross-posted on my facebook account.

Dirty Awful Fun

Yesterday while killing time I drove past Catamaran Park in Foster City, a park near the house where I spent most of my younger years. The city apparently has spent a great deal of effort turning the entire grass field in artificial turf, and boy does it look nice. I'm seeing this in a lot of parks these days (Danville has a field I umpire at occasionally where base hits turn into Triples routinely) and the suburbs soon will see entire generations grow up playing on artificial turf in areas where the weather is perfect for grass.

I'm not sure if this is good or not. I'm not going to soapbox and here and claim that I'm old and sign of the times blah blah good ol days--but I am going to say that the first time I played on turf I was dumbfounded. After being stomped by Burlingame's football team my freshman year of High School, I got back to the locker room and attempted to stamp the mud out of my cleats only to find they had been scraped clean. Now, when I was a kid I had a new pair of Baseball pants every two weeks because I would slide so much I would tear myself a new...you get the picture. I think I wasn't alone in being a kid that liked getting dirty.

What is the impetus for turf? Is it easier to maintain? You don't have to mow it, or re-paint lines on it for sporting events, or worry about gophers and other such pesky critters, but is that such a big deal? We're eventually cutting jobs in our community I would assume, and furthermore we're taking away a little bit of what ties us to the planet. Now I'll be the first to admit that getting stung by a bee is no fun at all, but is it worth (what I assume) is a multi-million dollar turf project?

Sports play differently on turf--the balls roll quicker and longer, changing the game a bit. You often times have to buy a second set of shoes to play on turf in order to maximize your game; using regular spikes isn't as effective as "turf shoes." I feel like this movement may just be an "Emperor's New Clothes" movement. As in, everybody else in the suburbs is doing it, so we need to do it or else folks won't think we're as postmodern as the rest of the world. Heaven forbid your child comes home completely disgusting from mud football, complete with an ensuing cold and a giant grin on his face that can only come from dirty, awful fun.