< it's almost midnight, so here's an entry for THE Midnight

~inquiry

I dunno. I've been doing a lot of "click around and find amusing links" in gemini, gopher, and web spaces of late, and what I feel I mostly found (or is it "interpreted as having found"?) was a sort of profound loneliness to which links give a dubious sense of connectedness, but most of the content (nobody being more guilty of what I'm about to say than yours-somewhat-truly..) is what Beatle George was getting at in his glorious

"I Me Mine".

Not that such content can't be interesting, for it most certainly often is. But eventually the aforementioned loneliness became an invisible hashtag of sorts, such that one of the first things coming to mind when encountering another such instantiation is much closer to "Oh, Jesus... here we go again... <leverage the "back" keyboard shortcut>" than "Oh, wow, what an interesting person describing fascinating things from their perspective!"

Maybe it's just (I) me (mine)? :-) But I'll take comments against inline quoted content over links any day. I mean, not that they're necessarily accomplishing the same thing. I'm just saying I'd rather witness - and possibly become involved in - interaction than jump from one isolation offering to another.

Perhaps hyper-jaded song spoof lyrics (of the aforementioned) drive $HOME the point?

         all through the web
   I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
            all gem-i-ni
   I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

now they're frightened of quoting it
        nobody's grokking it
  posting what's wrong all the time
         all through go-pher
              I me mine

            I me me mine
            I me me mine
            I me me mine
            I me me mine

           all I can read
   I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
         seems mostly screed
   I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

  no one's frightened of braying it
       here's a big tray of it
crowing 'bout themselves all the time
      each pro-to-col, I me mine

            I me me mine
            I me me mine
            I me me mine
            I me me mine

            all a veneer
   I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
          even those snears
   I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

  no one's frightened of braying it
       here's a big tray of it
crowing 'bout themselves all the time

       all through your clicks
              I me mine

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Replies

~tffb wrote (thread):

Hey Inquiry. I wrote a lengthy (and smart?) response to this on my laptop earlier, but there was a Save/Publish issue when my WiFi dropped out. (the Internet is finicky that way - wanting me to be CONNECTED to WiFi to write something online!)

The gist of the post was:

1) I am surprised you went with a George song to re-write into a small web parable, as people tend to gang up on his writing skills, even though he was immensely talented. John and Paul knew they had MORE talent, though (or as many people believe), and John and Paul told George as much and never gave him a fair shot.

2) I mentioned how someone has to first find/discover an individual's blog/content in order to even DO an inline quote or comment. And that it is very important (in small web standards) to take it upon oneself to offer up said quotes/comments (aka engage and reach out). Otherwise, it IS easy to get caught up in the link-bouncing method of (hashtag loneliness) and just *finding* folks and going nowhere from there. No one wants to "Facebook stalk" on the small web (or at least *I* don't! Haha).

Anyway, I hope you're well. Good lyricism. Talk later.