Speaking of the LSD experience, and culture, Tom Wolfe, in an article about the ten year anniversary of the weblog, scrawls on a crayon:
Happy Blogiversary - WSJ.com:
One by one, Marshall McLuhan's wackiest-seeming predictions come true. Forty years ago, he said that modern communications technology would turn the young into tribal primitives who pay attention not to objective “news” reports but only to what the drums say, i.e., rumors.
And there you have blogs. The universe of blogs is a universe of rumors, and the tribe likes it that way.
Blogs are an advance guard to the rear. For example, only a primitive would believe a word of Wikipedia (which, though not strictly a blog, shares the characteristics of the genre). The entry under my name says that in 2003 “major news media” broadcast reports of my death and that I telephoned Larry King and said, “I ain't dead yet, give me a little more time and no doubt it will become true.”
Oddly, this news supposedly broadcast never reached my ears in any form whatsoever prior to the Wikipedia entry, and I wouldn't have a clue as to how to telephone Larry King. I wouldn't have called him, in any case. I would have called my internist. I don't so much mind Wikipedia's recording of news that nobody ever disseminated in the first place as I do the lame comment attributed to me. I wouldn't say “I ain't” even if I were singing a country music song. In fact, I have posted a $5,000 reward for anyone who can write a song containing the verb forms “am not,” “doesn't,” or “isn't” that makes the Billboard Top Twenty.
Favorite blogs: Mr. Wolfe, “weary of narcissistic shrieks and baseless 'information,' ” says he no longer reads blogs.
Ummm, Mr. Wolfe, I think you have confused the Wikipedia with the weblog. You also seem to be confusing MySpace entries of your 19 year-old mistresses with the type of blogs discussing weightier matters. I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Wolfe is just practicing subterfuge, and is really employing himself as a sock-puppet for some anonymous blogger. You know, protesting a wee bit too much.
Same article (free I think) gives links and/or mentions to BoingBoing, FiredogLake, DigbysBlog.blogspot.com, Eric Alterman, Daily Howler, MoveOn.org, CrooksAndLiars.com, and other blogs on my regular rotation of reads.
Not the most compelling of articles about the blogosphere (with the exception of Jane Hamsher's rant), but if you had never heard of a weblog/webzine/blog, and wanted a jumping off point.....
Technorati Tags: blog, blogosphere, media
