Art is dead.

At least, if I'm to take seriously 80% of what I've been seeing lately, it sure is. I blame the internet for most of it, myself.....everyone and her grandmother and her dog has a blog or twelve and has designated herself a 'journalist' or an 'essayist'. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry (particularly the Dicks) has a digital camera, webcam, and/or cellphone camera and a flickr, MySpace, and/or Youtube page and has designated himself a 'photographer' and 'filmmaker'. It's fucking ridiculous, completely maddening. Bad 'art' is everywhere on the 'net, but that's not even the worst part.

Don't get me wrong, talentless gits have ALWAYS tried to pass themselves off as artists. There have always been street poets, Central Park sketch artists, and a gazillion guitar-torturing, self-torturing, and audience-torturing singer/songwriter wannabes making the rounds of the cafes in the West Village, not to mention all the schmucks wandering around in black (who WEREN'T wearing it strictly for its slimming properties) with pained expressions on their faces and nothing between their ears, hoping to be labelled as intellectuals by OTHERS, but with noplace to flat-out label THEMSELVES. These people have always existed, but their delusion was limited to themselves and perhaps a few of their equally dimwitted friends and families, if ONLY because their 'work' was stopped for quality's sake before they could commit it to a public forum.

But not anymore. Bad writers have Blogger and Wordpress and god-only-knows what the fuck else to 'publish' their blather, and scads of promotion websites to get the word out (just take a look at the side of this page, for pete's sake...heh). Bad photographers have Flickr and MySpace, bad filmmakers have MySpace and Youtube, and everyone's got virtually unlimited domain names to scoop up and web services to subscribe to, so they can build their very own, personalized, craptastic pile o' pseudoartistic manure, and when all that's done.....well, damn, skippy. If I've got a REAL LIVE WEBSITE, then I've GOT to be an Artist....right?

Wrong, fool. I'll admit, the net allows for real artists to get their shit seen more widely and a whole lot cheaper than anything that came before it. But the downfall of all this is that people like me and a lot of my friends, who appreciate good art and do seek it out, are getting so fucking sick and tired of reading page after page of unemployed junkies waxing poetic about their cats, their exes, their drug problems, and all the talent they think they have, as they spin around their living rooms till they get dizzy and puke, snapping pictures the whole time with their circa-2002 .5 megapixel digital cameras....that we've all but given up looking. And worse still, a lot of the people who might actually have made MONEY off their writing or visual art a few years ago are limiting themselves to blogging and Flickr-ing, honestly believing they're going to be 'discovered'. I was discussing the latter with a friend the other night over drinks when I realised something else horrifying...I AM a published writer, one who has been getting work published for real CASH since I was a teenager, and who HASN'T been published since Istarted BLOGGING....not because I honestly think I'm remarkable enough or promoted enough to be discovered via the net, but rather, because this has made me lazy. Shit, even my writing STYLE has become lazy. I look at what I've written here so far and can't help but wonder....what the hell is up with all those ellipses?

But I digress. Or rather, I rant. After all, isn't what the internet's for? (Well....that, and porn....)"

BLAHG

Backposted from Bone's Blahg Blahg Blahg 9/9/06:

I've avoided engaging in the blog phenomenon for a while for various reasons. One is a matter of time—having little spare time and not wanting to wile it away in cyberspace. Another is a matter of privacy—most people think I'm hard to get to know, which is true because I don't readily trust anyone in general, much less with my most intimate thoughts and feelings (not to mention the fact that online confessions of even the most innocuous sort could also easily be misused by loved ones, strangers, or authorities). Practicality is another issue since I just re-established a regular journaling habit again last year (a New Year's resolution that I'm proud to actually have kept up with), and I don't want to lose my momentum of physically writing in a journal. Then there's intention and prioritization: who am I journaling for, myself or others, and if it's both, when and what is most appropriate for which audience?

Yeah yeah yeah, blah blah blah… Which is why I've entitled this, my first ever (in a series of who knows how many), "blahg." Ultimately I think this is a pretty self-indulgent and somewhat mundane activity that may or may not be useful to myself or others—thus the triple entendre of "blahg" (blabber) "blahg" (blah) "blahg" (blog). The funny thing is that, if I do continue to blahg on a semi-regular basis, this might be the most accessible route for even those closest to me to understand/get to know me on a deeper level. Perhaps there's something to be said for the insulation and pseudo-anonymity that cyberspace provides—I have no trouble being honest but being vulnerable… well, my vulnerability might actually be a greater risk for you than me.

PostScript:
Obviously, I'm still blogging and feeling okay about it. I'm honored that my online pontifications have resulted in my recent invitation to become an official Ornery Woman (look for my recent ornery blahg to be re-posted here soon).