5.2.10

Am I not sexy enough for you?

I thought these long sessions, foreplay with words, the urgency to do something, shed inhibitions and garbs, the languorous moments with the seen and the unseen, as sentences were caressed and teased worked.

Not anymore. Blogging is passé. Emails are...oh, no...



A new study has found that brief is in. People want quickies.

Danah Boyd, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said, “Remember when ‘You’ve got mail!’ used to produce a moment of enthusiasm and not dread? (Now) people focus on using them for what they’re good for and turning to other channels for more exciting things.”

What is more exciting about tweets? Or leaving messages on walls at Facebook or other social networking sites? Is communication about just leaving behind a toe-print and not a trail? Yet, it is these sites that have ‘followers’. What are they following?

I took a quick look and found that this is just a way to make an asinine comment and then scoot off. Substance is lacking. I can understand celebrities doing that; I can understand if it is used to direct people to something of import elsewhere that they themselves have contributed to. But this is just one more element of fan culture where anyone with an account can claim to have fans. It also ends up as a means to make visible that you have said something about someone, even if it is a one-liner, to seem important.

There could be a few who may be able to convey something, but even they know it is only an appetiser.

Another distressing aspect is that the study focused on the young. It assumes that sexiness is connected in some ways with youth, and that stops at 30. This is only encouraging an attitude that will push the idea and target youngsters who will become commercial puppets. Will they stop and listen? Will they want to explore ideas? Sharing only means files, vids, plans for da party and latest pix. (Incidentally, if all this is getting fast-paced and short, then why the need for larger electronic memories?)

Commercial enterprises are quick to catch on to trends and they will be thrown the bait of cosmetics, clothes, and culture as a quick fix. It will, I am afraid, also result in ‘moving on’ even in careers and relationships.

How does any of this become sexy?

Language as we know it and experiment with cannot become a harridan only because of some punks who don’t even use their fingers well, that is why they trip so often and miss the vowels to save space. It is like missing a moment and talking about the eternal. The eternal flush that skims over and never enters the pores to tickle the flesh of a thought that rises to meet a paragraph created for it.

4 comments:

  1. FV wrote:"A new study has found that brief is in. People want quickies."


    Thanks for briefing the public at large about the debriefing activities of our fellow citizens. :-)

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  2. FV, when you talk of the langour of existence and chatter and all the "don't go there", "how are you?", "can I walk your dog?" that we endure....one of my favourite poems...and the song ain't bad either. :-)

    ===

    Grand Designs
    by Neil Peart (C)


    So much style without substance
    So much stuff without style
    It's hard to recognize the real thing
    It comes along once in a while
    Like a rare and precious metal
    Beneath a ton of rock
    It takes some time and trouble
    To separate from the stock
    You sometimes have to listen to
    A lot of useless talk

    Shapes and forms
    Against the norms --
    Against the run of the mill
    Swimming against the stream
    Life in two dimensions
    Is a mass production scheme

    So much poison in power
    The principles get left out
    So much mind on the matter
    The spirit gets forgotten about
    Like a righteous inspiration
    Overlooked in haste
    Like a teardrop in the ocean
    A diamond in the waste
    Some world-views are spacious --
    And some are merely spaced

    Against the run of the mill
    Static as it seems
    We break the surface tension
    With our wild kinetic dreams
    Curves and lines --
    Of grand designs...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Give it a shot. With your cryptic one liners you'd be great!! And we can follow you. Big essays don't always get it right.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Al:

    I was just holding forth at length about how brevity is not the 'sole' of wit :)

    Thanks for sharing the song.

    Ameya:

    Agreed, big essays don't always get it right, but when we get it wrong, there are checks and balances (and cheques, alas no balances!). I like to weave my one-liners within the body of the larger pieces...and they I should hope act as little breaks and surprises.

    ReplyDelete

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