Not So Famous…

I was reading an essay today by a guy named Shii.  (http://shii.org/knows/How_the_Web_was_Lost) Shii apparently knows a great deal about things, and has decided to post a bunch of it on his site.  This particular article was called “How the Web was Lost.”  His points ranged, but I’d like to zero in on a couple of them.

1. The Web has killed spectacular writing.  His first point that really made me wonder about what I was reading was that the Internet, due to its “anyone can be a writer” mentality of blogs, news sources, and Wikipedia, has completely killed good writing; writing that is worth reading.  Because the Web is flooded with crap, Shii argues, we will never see the likes of the classic authors ever again.  If everyone is an author, we have leveled out the playing field so that the standards are dropped.

First off, allow me to say that it’s a little ironic that Shii has chosen to write about the demise of good writing, and publish it on the Internet, which he blames as the culprit for it all.

However, I would postulate that “spectacular writing” will not be found on the Web…nor has it ever been found on the Web.  Spectacular writing is not something we ought to expect when we go to the Internet to see what’s cooking in cyberspace. The Internet is a place I buy books wherein I can find good writing. The Internet is a place where I can expect to find bad writers criticizing good writers. It is not a place where we ought to find the rare writer that can bring a tear to our hearts.

One of his main points, apparently, is that writing is not something everyone should do.  Only a few special people should write, apparently, and everyone else ought to fry bologna on a hot plate or something.  He said:

“Cyberspace knew the meaning of free speech, but it did not yet know the meaning of growth. Indeed, everyone wanted to be an author. But if everyone is an author, then it is a tautology and there is nothing special about it.”

I couldn’t disagree more.  What we have is a bunch of authors, sure. But we must formulate a distinction; an intensely personal distinction, of course, but a distinction nonetheless. Everyone can be an author, but not everyone can be an author worth reading.  Who determines who is worth reading?  Well, I do, of course; just as I determine what books are worth reading when I go to the bookstore. So we have tons of authors, and we have a couple that are worth reading, but in any case, the distinction makes the chosen few special…not the fact that they could write.

Something that Shii seems to want to return to is a time when writing was so uncommon that even someone who could write poorly was still pretty good. I don’t think that is a sustainable existence, or even a desirable one.

2. His second point is a very good one, and it relates to the enormity of the Web.  There is so much stuff on the Web that having a web presence ends up being fairly worthless.  Ultimately, you have to end up posting references to your site in so many places, HOPING against hope that someone will stop by and see your stuff, that it’s not really worth it.  We’ve discovered that with Dow Images.  Dow Images as a Web presence merely exists to have a humongous business card.

What I mean by that is that on our minimalist business card, we have our logo, and our web and e-mail addresses.  The Business Card empowers our customers to determine how they want to get the information.  We’re more than happy to answer questions via e-mail, of course, but we also want you to have the opportunity to learn all you can on our web site.

Our presence on the web is not necessarily to attract visitors, though if it happens to do that, all the better. Our presence is just to provide people the ability to check us out when it’s convenient for them.

Anyway, both those points got me thinking, but typing about them has taken so much energy in my virus-attacked state that I think I’m going to go to bed now.  :)