Actually, despite the cartoon, I have a lot to say. I have a great sense of humor. I'm a bit weird but, hey, normalcy (whatever that is) is overrated anyway.
But I just cannot seem to muster the motivation to promote myself, my blog, my Twitter, my StumbleUpon, my ANYTHING. I don't answer messages often, I can't remember who comes and goes, I have no desire to "reach out and touch" anyone except on rare occasions. I didn't even bother to remove the black line on top of my cartoon thingy here (the result of careless cropping).
I used to be addicted to blogging, and things were great at StumbleUpon before they crapped all over the system and converted it into a massive spamfest and altered the format so that everyone's traffic counts were drastically reduced.
I'm lazy, but I have a lot to share with people. Since I don't socialize much offline, the Internet is pretty much my only outlet for self-expression. As a writer by profession, it seems only natural that I would do well at it. Only I seem to have lost interest because everything is so focused on "social networking" and "reciprocation" and "self-promotion" that honestly, it's daunting. I'd rather be WRITING and having the experiences worth writing about vs spending all day soliciting "traffic," without which, the purpose of writing anything is defeated.
I guess since I don't have the energy to invest in doing all that work just to get people to read my drivel, I've stopped writing. I've stopped taking photos (which I usually defaced in some sophomoric way) and making asinine jokes about everything. I've even stopped blogging about my younger son, whose antics are the stuff of legend.
Now when I accidentally taser myself (which I've done twice so far ~ and trust me, it's NOT a joyful occasion), or cause fires, floods, kitchen disasters or incidents involving police (and/or handcuffs/jail), judges and ~ unknowingly, once ~ the Mob, or get stranded in strange places or just encounter weirdness of any sort, I don't rush to my computer to tell everyone my bizarre experiences anymore. Almost all of which, ironically, start out perfectly innocently. (Usually.) (By the way, I'm writing this with a completely straight face, no joking or sarcasm for once.)
It just seems that life seldom goes according to plan for me, which I guess is why I have quit planning stuff. The most exciting tidbits I can muster the energy to post anymore are often about my cat.
Yes. That's how far I've sunk in the cyber-abyss.
Honestly, I think all the work I put into my blogs (especially at StumbleUpon) only to accidentally delete my Blogger one entirely and to encounter complete traffic obliteration at StumbleUpon due to their drastic and ever-confusing and fragmenting changes has left me very disillusioned. Before SU changed its format, all it took to generate a mass audience quickly was to have great content. Now it feels like it's splintered off into millions of bits of cyber-junk, information overload and a lack of any meaningful way to keep up with anyone else. It's great as simply a surfing tool, but I guess I'm just tired after investing so much time and energy only to watch everything crumble.
Maybe this isn't just about social networking. Maybe this is equally as much about my disillusionment with SU after three years' worth of almost daily contributions, serious thought, effort, dedication, creativity, etc. pretty much being rendered a wasteland almost overnight. All in favor of getting people to simply thumb more sites and keep flooding the system, yet not rewarding those who actually have anything worthwhile or interesting to say. At SU now, people actually taking the time to write and post thoughtful, well-presented commentary (or, heaven forbid, write a post that is solely original content and isn't reviewing a site at all) means they're not Stumbling and thumbing as much, which is all the creators really care about anyway.
We "old schoolers" there were the ones who built the platform's popularity. The new waves of users were ushered in based on our collective efforts. We did the foundational gruntwork that made others take notice. Without those of us who were there in the early days, taking time to post genuinely good and interesting content, SU would not have become such a huge success (which ended up with their messing with an already-good thing and simply alienating the very users who helped it grow in the first place).
Maybe this is the real root of my lack of motivation to do this anymore. The impermanence of it all. The getting lost in the shuffle and having to suck up to tons of strange people to harvest traffic, the being forced to basically become nothing more than a glorified Internet salesman and invest huge quantities of time doing all the necessary social networking just to get people to visit your content. The stampede of "social networking gurus" blaring out their "expert advice" which frankly doesn't interest me ~ I was doing just fine without all that constant "advice" until the whole focus of things changed. And honestly, pushy people (which one pretty much has to be anymore to get noticed online) turn me off. So why would I personally want to become one of those very types that spend all their time hawking themselves on the Internet? When would I have time to experience anything worth writing about? Plus, I still have tons of stuff piled up that I've been "meaning to blog" that I still haven't gotten around to.
Most of what I see nowadays is the constant regurgitation of massive quantities of information. Where's the creativity? The imagination? The personality? The attributes that separate individuals from the pack of blogging clones? Those who do provide those very qualities are the hardest to find ~ because they're actually spending time on their content instead of "networking" and promoting themselves.
It's a Catch-22 situation. My resentment toward the whole depersonalization of the Internet experience has dimmed my sense of humor, my desire to give a damn even though just in the past week alone I had more bizarre (and blogworthy) incidents occur than many people experience in a month (or even many months, if one's life is very dull, hah).
I miss what the Internet used to be. I miss actually knowing people who stopped by to say hello, instead of dropping in to promote their latest site or forum. Yeah, I know that I suck at actually answering mails (this is aimed at my long-time faithful SU followers that I have grown to cherish despite the fact that I've left them all kind of wondering where I've gone). But at least I knew who people were, or got to know them.
Now everything is about traffic counts and statistics and quantity. The sheer repetitive, redundant and malignant volume of information and the constant hype about self-promotion and networking just overwhelms me.
I miss quality. I miss originality. I miss the concept of blogging as something fun ~ without some ulterior motive or sense of competition involved.
And frankly, as arrogant as this may sound, I miss ME.
