Only words

I decided to go out on the porch to write tonight, dragging a laptop with me. It’s way too hot, really, and the rain’s only made things sticky. Still, I’m going to stay out here for a while. I need a change.

The porch cat’s off exploring in the darkness, and the security light’s burned out again. This house has such lousy wiring — and this neighborhood such unstable current — that even compact fluorescents only last a few months. I’ve given up on keeping a toaster or an alarm clock alive. In this house everything burns out.

Ah, but I feel a mood taking me. Maybe it’s because I’m tired. Maybe it’s because it’s too hot. Maybe it’s because I’m bitter and a little frustrated. Nonetheless, hold on, children.

I feel a rant coming on. Let’s take a deep breath, and go.

The era of the intellectual field of honor has long gone; I miss the old Internet. People used to debate (and flame, and argue) about topics of substance. Sometimes it was hard for me to stomach the diatribes of the crypto-libertarians and anarcho-transhumanists and techno-pagans, but at least they had something to say, and they thought about it before they started typing. There was character and there were characters, and the ground was littered with the blood of ideas.

And of course it was all done with videos. Wait, no, that’s not right. Audio? No, that’s not it either. Graphics, photos? No, something else, what’s the word— That’s it! It was all done with words.

Words, damn it, words. Remember them?

People communicated with carefully chosen (if often insulting and inflammatory) words. Storytellers wove words into honest or funny or painful tales, and published them for the sheer joy of sharing. Creeds and philosophies and manifestos were written, tried and tested in the fires of creation. Endless verbal sparring on topics as varied as you can imagine, with all the fervor you could stand, and sometimes more than anyone could stand. That’s what the Internet was about: ideas, passion, creation, debate.

Now that kind of thought, when you can find it, is a frayed thread of signal is a labyrinth of noise. There are many possible reasons for this degeneration, but the primary culprit is money. On-line commerce was once as welcome as the proverbial punchbowl turd; now it’s the web’s entire raison d’être, making the possibility for intelligent debate as likely on-line as it is on television. You mustn’t risk offense unless, of course, those you might offend are outside your target demographic. Keep calm, keep cool, and don’t rock the boat unless your marketing plan accounts for the furor.

Once the web was words. Now it’s all about sales. You’re selling ads, you’re selling product, you’re selling your staggering insight into how to get other people to buy stuff. Blog posts are engineered, not written. The content doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got the right keywords and SEO bait. Shops in Mumbai crank out 500 words on the topic of your choice for US$1.00, guaranteed to get past the plagiarism test. And you know what? Those Indian guys are still better writers than most of the people getting published today. At least they’re creative, even if only at reusing content without affecting search rankings.

Clearly I put way too much effort into Hidden City; I over-think things. I will let an essay or story sit in draft form for weeks, months, or longer, until I feel like it’s right. Sometimes — often — it loses relevancy before I publish it. Other times someone else will knock something out on the same topic, leaving me to wonder if what I have to say is still original enough to make the effort. It can be frustrating to take the time to think an idea through, cutting and polishing the words just so, only to have someone knock two hundred words out on their phone while waiting in line for their soy latte and be instantly lauded as a new media genius.

Today if you mention that you write for the web you are afforded the same respect as someone who scribbles tales of old Nantucket on men’s room stalls. They say: You’re blogging; quality doesn’t matter, just quantity. They say: Stop thinking so much and just fill the page with buzzwords. They say: You don’t need to have anything to say, you just need to keep on updating so the rubes keep coming back.

Or they say: “Oh, yeah, my six year old’s got a blog, too.”

Don’t take the spit-shouting and arm-waving too seriously, though. It probably wasn’t the best idea to take a vacation from the self-congratulatory circle-jerks of the social media scene and spend more time with bitter, cynical, misanthropic writers. In fact, this whole rant is just one rocking chair shy of chasing you damned punk kids off my lawn.

Speaking of the lawn, the cat’s ambled back through the grass and is on the porch again now, looking warily at the way I’ve been pounding this poor keyboard. It’s five o’clock in the morning and my shirt’s soaked with sweat and I’m hungry and want a drink rather badly, so it’s time to call it a night and try to sleep this off.

Words take a lot out of me.