passion is in fashion

Really, is there anything as enjoyable as reading a really good blog?  (Yes!  Perhaps petting a puppy while smelling flowers while reading a blog!)   Just imagine, this form of communication didn’t exist until a few years ago.

I remember one day I was listening to my eleventh grade English teacher discuss the literary masterpiece of The Great Gatsby.  There was one thing which completely revolutionized writing at the time, which was…. the movies!  In The Great Gatsby you’ll find Fitzgerald cutting from one scene to the other, much like a movie does.  According to Mr. G, it has never been done in fiction before.  (Really?  What if a writer was just really really ADD?)

Blogs are awesome because they again revolutionized the premise of writing.  It could be of a unifying theme, or it could be entirely incoherent: a bunch of ramblings bearing no relation to each other other than that they are dreamt up by the same person.  Ah, technology makes us *that* much more tolerant of randomness.

And like any brilliant idea, blogs are polarizing.  Famously, Anna Wintour and judge Alex Kozinski alike have been known to publicly hate on blogs.  As Kozinski so concisely puts it: “I hate them, hateful things… just think it’s so self-indulgent, you know. ‘Oh, I’m so proud of what I’m saying, I think the world instantly wants to know what I’m thinking today.’ People wake up thinking, . . . . ‘I wonder what great thoughts have come into his mind this morning that I can feel myself edified by.’” (via Above the Law.)  And Anna apparently hates the word blog so much, the Vogue staff were instructed to find an alternative name for it.  (Blogue, perhaps?)

Lastly, as I have previously recounted here, blogs are simply a reflection and product of the generation. The blogs I love the most are those who seem to have somewhat of a central theme, but manages to frequently deviate, all the while peppered with whimsical and witty commentary.  A bit like my favorite people, really.

Enough on theorizing, onto one of my favorite blogs, which is from Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes fame.  Although I don’t quite agree with her shoe choices (prefer classic stiletto heels myself!), I find her mother-daughter partnership and frequent puppy appearances super adorable.  This is her mood inspirations blog, which is full of enigmatic and provocative images.

They don’t call them lovers in high school, Leeland

One night I decided to stay in. Honey decided to stay in. We decided to upload Facebook photos. She decided to comment on my photos. She decided to email me about something. Seeing that I was online, she decided to Google Talk me to share some gossip. When she couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with her excitement, she decided to call me to dish.

And so within five minutes, I was contacted via a thousand different technological channels. The Future, (dramatic pause), is here. Today, the way one uses technology instantly defines one as of a certain generation.

Take the provider personal of email addresses, for example. Most of the time, people fall into the Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or Netvigator camps. These are extremely telling. Gmail became popular around 2005, where J was the first person I knew with a Gmail address. His brother bid on an invite for him on Ebay. Then Gmail invites became prevalent through massive college friend distributions. Basically, anybody from the graduating classes of ‘05 onwards set themselves up with a Gmail address upon abandoning their .edu’s.

Hotmail is and interesting dichotomy. It could mean they were the first batch of internet surfer when they were *the* provider of free accounts before everyone else. It could also mean they are just an international person who like to use MSN for chatting and conveniently also use Hotmail (especially popular in Asia). Yahoo is undoubtedly the parental email address. My mom has one. Everyone around her age has one. Once Hotmail because too cutesy and confusing to use and Yahoo came out offering larger mailboxes, they switched over the Yahoo. Lastly, along with Netvigator, I’ll throw in the AOLs and any email address that came along with the person’s internet service provider. These are just so *unhip*.

Now let’s move onto another manifestation of generational gap: the level of mastery of prevalent forms of expression. I’ll stick with two examples: 1) The Facebook Wall, and 2) Twitter.

By this time, most have figured out the purpose of the Facebook wall. It is mostly for posting things that are 1) inconsequential and funny (e.g. miss u xoxo~! keke) or 2) getting in touch with people that one is not good enough friends with to personally email. Every once in a while, I see a wall post that goes something like a well-crafted typewritten cover letter. “Dear xxx, How are you? I will be in town for a few days was wondering if you are available. I forward to hearing from you. Regards, xxx” — I instantly think: what period is this dinosaur from?!?

The next new thing is of course Twitter – spontaneous broadcasts to undefined audiences. Just like the way Dior’s New Look was representative of the post-war society’s need to find something spectacular, Twitter is a reflection of today’s ME generation – who think everything they say is so witty and worthy of everyone’s attention. (What?! Of course it is.)

When I first started using Twitter, it was hard to wrap my head around the concept. I had no idea who (or if anyone) was reading my Tweets, and did not know how to contain my thoughts within 140 characters and still be interesting. As I read more and more Tweets, and silently judged who is worth following and who is not, I have to say the 140 character limit is brilliant. As one professor so concisely explained the length of a good paper: “Just like girls’ skirts, it should be long enough to cover the topic, but short enough to keep things interesting.” Some examples of good Tweets, where I LOL-ed:

• Got room service, utensils fell on floor. Either I’m really tired from the redeye or my silverware just tried to commit suicide
• At a friend’s house and when I walked by a cactus it poked me. Personally, I find that unnecessary and a bit immature
• In elevator, wanted to know cell phone carrier girl used b/c she said she had beautiful reception. She meant wedding reception

- By Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

Now onto some examples of bad Tweets: “Going to sleep”, “Doing laundry”, “Eating dinner”, “Feeling lonely”. They are just not that news-worthy or entertaining. Yes, we *all* do that at some point. It is really not what you are doing or what you are thinking, but how you express it (in 140 characters or less.)

Maureen Dowd interviews the founders of Twitter. Three witty people together makes for a really funny interview. All answers in 140 characters or less.

ME: Would Shakespeare have tweeted?

BIZ: Brevity’s the soul of wit, right?

Read the whole thing in the NYT

Back in November ‘08 I was hanging out with a bunch of particularly creative types and they were all about the Twitter. Hell, even their parents were on Twitter. Cool breeds cool. That was the first time I heard of the Twitter.

The second time, I was reading a parody of the Tweets of the presidential candidates circa December ‘08. It was either in Vanity Fair or Newsweek, which I can’t seem to find now. Anywhooo, Sarah Palin’s Tweets went something like: shoppin’, huntin’, goin’ home. I hope you cracked a smile.

And last night, NPR’s Dan Schorr was making a report on Twitter. He is a veteran reporter with more than six decades of experience, and he is on Twitter! As I completely trust NPR endorsement, and am intrigued by which of my other favorite NPR personalities are on Twitter, I revived my Twitter account.

And so, you may now follow my every move via Twitter!

www.twitter.com