Actual logorrhea

We got the upstairs carpet shampooed and scotch-guarded recently, so for the past few days there have been little squares and rectangles of paper leading up to my room for me to step on so that whatever’s on the bottoms of my feet doesn’t dirty up the drying fabric. It’s kind of cool, since I like to pretend that I’m in a video game hopping from platform to platform as I go in and out of my room. I think I played the same kind of make-believe several years ago when climbing around the ruins of Machu Picchu, only then there was an actual possibility of serious injury. Game Over.

Logorrhea

There’s a vague irony to writing a brief blog post on this article, but I’m going to do it anyway.

About halfway through Stein’s piece, I noticed something curious about my act of reading it, namely, that the article was veering away from where I assumed it was going and instead moving on to a completely different, although entirely valid point. Stein seems to be operating off the notion that current web technology operates as an honest to goodness “marketplace of ideas” that efficiently sifts creative output such that it gets expressed and primarily consumed in a form appropriate to its maximum degree of development–hence, the Rob Schneider/YouTube connection, which of course brings to mind the legion of SNL-sketch-influenced movies that really should have remained sketches. Insofar as this argument holds water, I do think he has a point (e.g., Little Nicky really should never have been made), but there nevertheless is plenty of market-based evidence to undermine his thesis (e.g., the comments page for the previous link).

The more sinister implication I initially thought he was aiming at, however, is that the proliferation of tools by which, and forums in which one may opine on a whim generally devalues the formation of complex opinions because technology has enabled the satisfaction of merely saying something to outpace the incentives for coming up with things that are worth saying. In other words, why should I invest more time and effort developing my thoughts into a blog post that A) few people will read, B) will probably not be very good, C) I’ll probably end up forgetting about or changing my mind about later, and D) I may actually abort halfway through when I realize I don’t have anything I really want to say, when I can dash off a quick one-liner on Twitter or make up a clever status for myself at Facebook and feel a few seconds’ gratification at having made my mark of free expression on the networks? Is the internet becoming one giant bathroom wall for our soundbyte culture?

I’m generally of the opinion that it’s good for people to put a fair bit of thought into self-presentation, be it physical or intellectual, if only out of respect for the public spaces they intend to inhabit. You don’t shit where you eat, as the vulgar expression would have it. Whither, then, the culture that would redefine defecation?