a little threadjack on Bitch, please. (Emily Magazine) (via melissa)
OKAY I’LL BITE.
A lot of this commentary, I think it is fair to say, is rooted in the idea that there is not room enough in the world— or in the ‘discourse’ or ‘culture’ or the zeitgeist or the motherfucking INTERNET, whatever you want to call it or consider it- for everyone to be creative, for everyone to, to borrow a little from Tumblrspeak itself- FOR EVERYONE IN THE WORLD TO SHARE THE THINGS THEY LOVE AND CREATE.
And what a terrible assumption. What a wrong assumption. That is where insidiousness lies— that if a Midwestern 19 year old away at college spends her evenings in her dorm room transcribing the things she underlined in her fucking well-worn copy of On The fucking Road (I went there) and posting them to her TUMBLR, or hell, even REBLOGGING THEM FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE, that this somehow makes your short story or your carefully-written article or your goddamn life’s work any less meaningful or valid or GOOD— fucking good, ya know, that still exists, the ability to differentiate between talent and crap, between value and lack of value, we have not lost that, and if think otherwise well I think that has less to do with photoshopping Dashboard Confessional lyrics on top of a well-saturated photograph of a skinny woman holding balloons than YOU, than your passion, that your perspective, than how you feel about the world.
Because I think it’s nice that as an ‘urban’ or quasi-urban or wannabe urban or wannabe creative person, I think it’s nice that I can write a vomitous first draft about How I Feel or Last Night’s Party or This Great Book I’ve Read, and three thousand people will read it. And a handful of those people will be moved by it. And one or two people will be moved to do the same thing. As the founder of this insidious dystopia itself said in a meeting with me the other day about, ya know, how to make this a better place for artists to share the stuff they create, “Artists beget artists.” And I believe that. And whatever level you are operating on, maybe you should remember that. That art begets art, that you can find people to challenge you, inspire you, and if you think something is stupid or worthless, then it is just that. Make something better.
Would that midwestern teen girl, detached from the Internet and the distractions thereof (are we projecting? are we more worried about ourselves? that we aren’t FORCED to create Big Things? I don’t think we can blame our little Internet Dystopia for that, I think we have to blame Us, i think you need to take ownership of your lack of Real Achievement, maybe your lack of drive to do more. Who is keeping you from that? It certainly isn’t WordBoner or This is Why You’re Fat. You want to do more? Do better? Do it! Tumblr isn’t stopping you. We still know what good is. We still know about the desire to do more. And it’s just that: desire. Drive. That comes from within, and has nothing to do with Twitter Wit. Twitter Wit doesn’t take away space in the world or GOD KNOWS, the Internet. The Internet is infinite. Make your big things. But no one will force you; no one ever has, and if the Internet blew up tomorrow, you’d have nothing but your own reasons why you didn’t) anyway if that Midwestern teen girl didn’t have Tumblr, maybe she would be writing the Great American Novel, is that what we’re saying?
Ha. Well, maybe she will write it anyway, in the meantime, after she tabs over, signs off of gchat, and remembers what she wants to create. Maybe she will read something on Tumblr that inspires her to do that. And maybe she will post a link to her goddamn book reading in your hometown and you’ll see it on your Dashboard and cry.
(via meaghano)
Hey Meaghan - don’t know if you read Merlin Mann’s Tumblr, but he has something to say about this, which you might enjoy reading, here. I dug it. And for the record, I also think that Tumblr itself has very little to do with who writes what and for what reason.
