Why have posts on ILX gotten so boring in the past 10 years?

This might not be true, but I'm pretty sure it is..

I'd bring up the growing influence of the Reptilians, but of course WE CAN'T TALK ABOUT THAT

GOD

not enough Sicilians

Not enough parody threads

Because we're all old and not drunk enuf?

Why has your face gotten so boring?

lack of consistent trolling, i think.

who is our troll right now anyways?

maybe we need to take out an ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDSbPt39EQA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbt_m6oX2n4

ZS uncovers the shocking truth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP49-qftyuk

need more food threads

the vast majority of ILX posts have been boring since always

Some of the best posts are bland

Right on

It happened around the time that the Patron Board Brain changed from Mark S's loopy, surreal, philosophical abstracts to Nabisco's endless OTM reasonableness.

except for a few very well-trodden topics ilx seems pretty sleepy these days

i am pretty sleepy, certainly

mordy start a thread where you give a 140 character summary of your opinion of each ilxor

:D

that'd bring the house down!

might try and do that in a "positives only" way but i'm so sleepy

does "really conscientious about polling the best records of previous decades" count as a positive?

"excellent at communicating a limited range of opinions"?

What ILX needs is a struggle session thread

What ILX needs is a struggle session thread

I started a self-criticism thread, but it was locked.

the modocracy tolerates no criticism but its own

How many regular posters are there now? It used to feel like there were dozens but now it feels like a pubroomsworth.

i think there's still a bunch but a growing % are indistinguishable from each other

"astute at identifying potential threats to the quality of the message board"

"highly skilled at ensuring all posters are aware that there is a Metal poll happening"

oh vague :D

For more than a week, a veil of secrecy enveloped the proceedings. Dozens of prominent Americans -- members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, academics and clergy -- were summoned to the mountaintop retreat to confer with the beleaguered president. Sitting on the floor taking notes, Carter listened to criticism, much of it scathing, of him and his White House. Reagan biographer Steven Hayward has aptly described it as "the most remarkable exercise in presidential navel-gazing in American history." At the end of the "domestic summit," the president planned to deliver a nationally-televised address, telling Americans what he had learned and how he planned to lead them out of the current crisis.

ilx malaise

i think there's still a bunch but a growing % are indistinguishable from each other

― Mordy , Friday, November 15, 2013 10:34 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

The solution is to give every poster a number of http://ilxor.com/s.png in their display name that correlates to the quality of their posts

"holds forthright views on food and how to eat it"

"not easily fooled by sheeple"

i believe finney said it best when he said the only point of engagement one can control is their own

be the change you want to see mordy

"knowledgeable as to what date new indie albums will be released on"

"depressed"

"has body issues"

thought you were talking about treesh for a few seconds there, TLG

"not afraid to share intimate details of their inner life and how much they dislike work"

lol nv

"keenly interested in message-board-based political reform"

"gets really annoyed at everyday, insignificant occurrences"

"netflix subscriber"

"comfortable with their own bigotry"

a rain shall come

i believe finney said it best when he said the only point of engagement one can control is their own

be the change you want to see mordy

― the late great, Friday, November 15, 2013 10:41 AM (1 minute ago)

it's a lovely thought but there's only so much thread bumping, conversation baiting, etc you can do while watching the new posts on the lily allen racist thread slowly tick up b4 u lose hope

j = new poster or old poster w/ new dn or old poster w/ old dn that i just started noticing recently?

"australian"

"can hold camera steady at arm's length"

"knows where the shift key and the number 6 key are"

"makes sweeping judgment of a persons character based on one message board post"

LOL noodle vague

"at least he's not frogbs"

"clickbaited"

"has in-depth knowledge of some kids' shit about pixies and space monsters or something"

All of the above

"overeducated, underemployed"

dear j.

"feels hot"

"feels cold"

"able to manufacture clusterfucks from minimal dissent"

S/D: Slacks (tweed, khaki, any kind of slacks really)

"Able to fart at will"

ilx needs levers to encourage ppl to be on their game. something like a periodic elimination vote might help.

we used to have that iirc

was called "suggest" something or other

suggest u become a more interesting human being

yeah but we can do better. ritualize it, make it into an event. and for all the hand-wringing only a very small number of posters were ever truly threatened by the sb axe. everyone needs to be on their toes.

only a very small number of posters were ever truly threatened by the sb axe

like me

call it "The Hongro Games"

the excelsior games oh for fuck's sake vague

WHY

i don't mind using myself as an example. my number ppl have calculated that my post quality has deteriorated by 7-9% over the past 3 years, and that was from a pretty low base to start with. why am i not worried about that? why doesn't it keep me up at night? we've created a culture of comfortable mediocrity.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sJq42pXCZlI/TPk56SM9t3I/AAAAAAAAC2U/YDk7007wQrA/s1600/shirley%2Bjackson.JPG

did u read that book its a good book

hongroe games is excellent by the way. to be beaten to the punch AND comprehensive outclassed is a tough deal, sorry imago.

this is the dawning of the age of no discernible posting styles, no discernible posting styles

it's a lovely thought but there's only so much thread bumping, conversation baiting, etc you can do while watching the new posts on the lily allen racist thread slowly tick up b4 u lose hope

― Mordy , Friday, November 15, 2013 3:44 PM

Maybe you need to try to recruit new people who have never been on ilx to post on the threads that interest you. Not that I have ever succeeded in that.

curmudgeon, u are one of the few ilx ppl who actually post about interesting things ime

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^
^^^^^
^^^
^^
^

face it, we're all just coming to terms with our own mortality.

I will not face it.

you can go out arse-first instead then

wins the race to the bottom

xp mis-read that as arse-fist...

keep the meme alive, boys!

sarahell, what would you find exciting to discuss on ilx?

semiotics, drumming, imago

ilx definitely at its dullest ebb at the moment, last 2-3 years have seen a real downturn

rip

The best documentaries about British politics, name them

if I were to guess the source of this malaise, it would be the relative paucity of new blood, and the relative jadedness of the old guard, who have discussed every subject under the sun more than once by now.

by way of contrast, I Love Hoops is a hotbed of eager enthusiasm. but only if you like the nba.

the nba is the chappaquiddick of sports

if I were to guess the source of this malaise, it would be the relative paucity of new blood, and the relative jadedness of the old guard, who have discussed every subject under the sun more than once by now.

― Hoogste Punt van Nederland (Aimless), Friday, November 15, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think there is too much meta-handwringing about what ilx should be like, and what kinds of things have made it good in the past. as a discussion forum, spontaneity is key. and a watched pot never boils because boiling happens through spontaneity.

boiling happens through heat

http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG

i take it all back, how could i miss such classics of the genre:

Pitch an oral history

http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG

but seriously, it's down to facebook innit. everyone's switched their best patter there, surrounded by mostly friendly faces, whereas ilx is more likely to end in fist-clenching rage

There seems to be this system where if you disagree with what someone says you can dismiss it as boring or make it into a joke. I mean that's one way of doing things I guess but you can't have that and also expect interesting non-boring convo, because that would mean engaging

I think what Mordy's looking for - distinguished individual posting styles - are only going to emerge when people feel happy about writing things out at length

....................../´¯/) ....................,/¯../ .................../..../ ............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ ........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') .........\.................'...../ ..........''...\.......... _.·´ ............\..............( ..............\.............\...

lol

Go on then what's that?

Oh I see it's an individual posting style

cardamon otm.

You two have great individual posting styles ;-)

sweet

I love books is a remote outpost to the main show, but it is possible to write at length there and be read appreciatively.

The heyday of mad stylistic flourishes on ilx was spawned by a dedicated cadre of Ask A Drunkites back when that forum drew at least 5 or 6 posts a day. That day is over, alas. We shall never see its like again.

ilx encourages conformity among new posters

sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, but i think there a lot of people here who actively don't want posters to have distinguished styles. because that would mean, ya know, being interested in people who think differently than they do.

most of the people here are cool though http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/BoardFiles/164/Emoticons/sunglasses.gif

people who think differently than they do

teach me how to rebel

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/e9/c7/e9c7d315507aa5e978ad32003d424964.jpg?itok=jkjVJl1y

i can see that me being banned briefly this week has pushed this issue to the fore; rest assured ilx is in no further danger

Dare to Care (TM)

idk, it's not about rebellion. i think zing culture cauterizes discussion because only really thick-skinned people are going to be sharing their opinions. nobody writes un-guardedly, and many interesting lurkers probably turn away because they don't feel like they would be able to jump into the discussions, which means fewer new "distinctive" voices. this is both good and bad. maybe more good than bad. maybe the opposite. depends on what kind of board you want. cf. is comedy inherently conservative?

sorry xp to mookie

huh, ilx has got boring after all

oh, i don't really disagree about 'zing culture'' i just question you as a worthwhile prophet of the new and better way

tbf i've not noticed you starting polls of the 'worst hipster such-and-such' so god bless

i never touted myself as a "prophet of the new and better way" but otherwise, cool.

Bah! You're all just waiting for me to die so you can take my job and my office. I know it. And you've been moving my cheese, too. Not that I care about that.

guess y'all missed the eagles thread

yeah i didn't read that at all

how does it relate to the new and better way?

Everyone posting on that thread was hilarious. There was no zing culture bc Henley and Frey absorbed all zings.

All future zings should be directed at Don Henley

because he deserves it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhq-yO1KN8

every regular start a new thread a day for a week

This right here is some dumb hand-wringing bullshit

why do ppl bump these threads like once a week?

how often do we have to talk about the fact that we are boring srsly stfu

Treezy, with all dues, zing culture would have torn yr face clean off. The tickles you've experienced are the suds left over from zing culture.

Maybe if ILX took any kind of semantic or cultural theory remotely seriously I would not complain. Bring on the hilarious image avalanche, fuckers

what are you even talking about

talkin' about his generation

men's rights

that'll stick won't it

was not serious

ILX doesn't care

ILX tommy lee jones chasing u through a tunnel

at least zing culture brought some hearty lols, loudest/worst elements of current uk & eire ilx culture are basically:

1) heavily abbreviated shrug (to make sure newcomers don't have a clue what's being said)

2) weary sneer

both basically shut down any kind of dialogue.

genuine longing for a return to the glory days of dom p and calum and graham and that john wizard guy who filled threads with little swirling gifs and embedded midi files

I'm one of those people who has increasingly become even more angered by ILX as a whole, because of what I've dubbed the Excelsior Syndrome. Far too many people are far too interested in being comedic at the expense of any sort of real discussion that there can no longer be anything approaching real adult-like conversation. I'm not saying there should be a complete ban on everything funny, I'm just saying that the funniness should be controlled, reined in, and only used as a method of exchange between individuals who wish to interact with each other in that manner. Maybe I'd be asking too much for that. Maybe I'd also be asking too much to have everyone treated with the same common courtesy they treat everyone else. I'm not talking friendship-type overtures; I'm just talking about keeping in mind that behind the username there lies a REAL PERSON, with the feelings and emotions accorded any real person out there. Maybe the majority of individuals here are too immature or cold-hearted or arrogant to carry on with that kind of attitude.

if ILX took any kind of semantic or cultural theory remotely seriously I would not complain

in regard to the thread maleness which you started and appears to be the background for your complaint above, I believe its downfall was not an excess of semantic or cultural theory, but rather an initial post that failed to define the topic within a reasonable compass, or provide a direction from which to approach it. The thread's OP prompted little more than a slack jaw and glazed eye, rather than a keen desire to come to grips with this fascinating subject. The implied ridicule it inspired was, I'm sorry to say, somewhat merited.

But perhaps, if you started another thread with a better constructed beginning, you'd inspire more satisfactory results.

that is such a terrible post that I am laughing, beyond profanity

you have broken me Aimless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfvFa8KexRw

genuinely curious what imago's issue is but idgi

http://www.markmallett.com/blog/wp-images/towerofbabel.jpg

ILX, 2013

blame nakkchivan's disdain for everything in the world

NI/al leong- genuinely interested to know if you'd argue that the things you instance are either recent developments or even at their worst compared to three/five yrs ago?

lol do a search on al's text

let me guess, it's wcc

eh close enough

Flopson otm, but if you guys really need to do this you could try backing up your assertions with examples

start an anti-excelsior thread where you post all humor mis-fires and failed jokes, that'll shame 'em!

I, for one, welcome posts that destabilize the flimsy nature of threads created to grind axes. If you're unable to change the dialogue on a thread, or are unable to get your point recognized on its own strength, then there's no loss in people poking fun at your point.

I've been laughed off stage a time or two but it's nice to have opportunities to learn things

tl;dr no goofy reddit shit let's get back on point

― mh, Monday, November 18, 2013 12:34 PM (Yesterday)

sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, but i think there a lot of people here who actively don't want posters to have distinguished styles. because that would mean, ya know, being interested in people who think differently than they do.

ban treeship

me otm

yr posts are a vast wasteland

but your body is a wonderland

no, my posts are usually really short. not vast.

i like fugazi

I'm all for friendly arguments, but the tenor of argumentation here is not generally friendly.

hi poliopolice

what the fuck ilx do you people all post to

like spin the wheel of threads and go ahead and point out the old super cuddles happy argument ones from any point since idk man 2005 that are so different than now plz

also if any of this is in reference to "old ilx would never have reacted to a meaningful thread by imagebombing it" i mean seriously gtfo

I think there's two possible responses to a thread which is framed as "let's have a meaningful discussion about X."

the first is, yes, a meaningful and earnest discussion which tragically and inevitably finds itself reproducing the exact same rhetorical gestures and positions which are by now exhausted and exhausting.

the second is image bombing and a general meta-commentary which mocks the idea of achieving a meaningful conversation on the internet.

I the internet is so overwhelming in this way--there's so much of it!--that the last refuge of a meaningful response is to refuse communicate meaningfully. as if to say "we can't really talk about that here." the internet doesn't really allow it because it has sort of "built in" responses to that conversation which contextualizes it as the navel gazing of over-educated under-employed types--and thus makes it seem limited and pointless.

all of which to is to say that the internet makes a "meaningful" (my word, admittedly) conversation about anything take place in a realm in which that conversation already seems sorta ridiculous.

the internet as a kind of totality of all communication makes communication itself limited. (ah but this is sorta mystical
I guess! the image bomb as the wordless immensity of Being or whatnot.)

it's also interesting to me the things about which people will choose to be sincere/vulnerable. there's a handful of threads about serious topics which have that going on, I think. but even in fleeting moments you'll see a kind of unguarded enthusiasm in some music threads and film threads which are really great and life affirming for me personally.

i have a hard time believing that someone is so worked up about the fact that "ilx is boring" that this question even needed to be posed

how aggressively bored are you?

my advice to am0n: discover the random thread button

I feel like the tension between sincerity and snark, or whatever you want to call it, was there from the relatively early days of ilm/ilx. The "zing culture" side of it was a strong element from the get-go, except that it had a somewhat different flavor to it (maybe because the community was smaller, less compartmentalized, and more British) so you'd see a lot of Wildean repartee, but the difference is that it felt like committed repartee, as in, "I'm going to trade barbed witticisms with you, but I'll stick around to see how you respond and what we can make of it"; whereas now you get more "hit-and-run", disengaged type comments. (That was a ridiculously run-on sentence).

why have ilx is boring posts on ilx gotten so boring in the past 10 years

Only Boring People are Bored™

ilx needs new gimmiks

we already have a chickenbear. why would we need anything more than that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLIPTOUH51I

That is a remarkably rosetinted revision of the caring zings of yesteryear imo collardio

In my experience, threads on ILX regularly produce interesting and sincere discussion, even now. Threads on certain topics also produce mass-eyerolling and snark if you don't frame your question properly and the maleness one was definitely in that category.

Witty and insightful zings and snark are an important part of any community's self-regulation IMO. Rote zings or lazy snark tend to sap vitality but not as much as creepitude or needless cruelty/dickishness.

When did ILX go from being something special to being just another shitty internet forum?

No Matt there are no discussions happening anywhere on ilx

There used to be discussions but now they get shut down, RIP discussions

Ok folks we're done here *rote zing*

even the meta clusterfucks aren't what they were. BORING THREAD

heh otm

Eh the thread Matt linked from 9 years ago is more boring

Trayce is otm in that thread tho

What did she say about futurama

Basically if someone changes their name and doesn't immediately revive a Cardiacs thread, I just default them to "maybe gear".

Such a sad ilx, excelsiorbaitin' around the clock, but wishing it could clusterfuck once in a while

http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977

keep on snarkin'

magnificent first subheading

I read about the first 1000 words then started skimming. Smarm seems to be a whole series of specific quotes that he doesn't like, but his larger point never really coheres and his notion of 'smarm' as a rhetorical device never gets adequately defined. He just seemed generally irritated at something or someone and created a theory to explain it, except his theory isn't a theory so much as a prolonged expression of his irritation.

^^^quod erat demonstrandum

a prolonged expression of (...) irritation

new board description imo

excellent invective obviously, even if he could have been even more impolite at times, really take some fucken names

aimless, if forced to describe yourself using one of the following two adjectives, which would you pick? snarky / smarmy

& its applicability to ILX is definitely a thing

if forced to describe yourself using one of the following two adjectives

I'd point out that you're employing a fucking stupid false binary.

i feel like you can either read that 18 page treatise on internet talk or you can read this one sentence excerpt from a nabisco post from the other day and get the exact same thing out of either

lot of popular internet phraseology feels like that to me -- it equips people to imitate the sound of being clever, savvy, righteous, and penetrating even when they don't have any genuine cleverness or savvy to bring to bear.

― ንፁህ አበበ (nabisco), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 4:32 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^quod erat demonstrandum

afaics, imago, you're just saying that you found the quotes he cited to be irritating, too, and you want to go on record as being on his side, which is fine as far as it goes, but it lacks the same quality of cogent analysis that the gawker's column promised and failed to deliver. I could say this more rudely, if that allowed you to better see my point.

i agree with both the article and aimless's criticism of it

also hope that nabisco can see himself in the mirror he is holding up to the rest of the internet

a rain shall come

putting aside your valid objection that i am presenting a false dichotomy, can you relate to one tone + affect more than the other?

got a feeling that this will be the great clusterfuck of our time. let's go snark, Agent Mords

afaics, imago, you're just saying that you found the quotes he cited to be irritating, too, and you want to go on record as being on his side, which is fine as far as it goes, but it lacks the same quality of cogent analysis that the gawker's column promised and failed to deliver. I could say this more rudely, if that allowed you to better see my point.

― Aimless, Thursday, 5 December 2013 18:24 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FOR INSTANCE

this is a terrible post. I found his *argument* to be strong & valid. don't fucking presuppose what I got out of that article you smarmy git! anyway, I thought he very clearly delineated a closing-down-of-debate style of haughty & elitist self-serving bullshit that YOU ARE EMPLOYING IN YOUR POST by presupposing my tenor of mind. what do you mean by 'cogent analysis'? you can't fucking say there's no cogent analysis without demonstrating or at least fucking arguing WHY there's no cogent analysis. you're sitting atop a tower of smuggery! come over to the snarky side or else expect potshots

i feel like you can either read that 18 page treatise on internet talk or you can read this one sentence excerpt from a nabisco post from the other day and get the exact same thing out of either

lot of popular internet phraseology feels like that to me -- it equips people to imitate the sound of being clever, savvy, righteous, and penetrating even when they don't have any genuine cleverness or savvy to bring to bear.

― ንፁህ አበበ (nabisco), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 4:32 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― sleepingbag, Thursday, 5 December 2013 18:23 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thank you sleepingbag for beautifully & precisely demonstrating exactly what Mordy is saying about ILX

That nabisco post doesnt rly seem to relate to the main thrust of that article at all tbh

i.e. nabisco isn't actually saying anything there *at all*, and yet it is heralded as the last word on a particularly complex & thorny topic of debate. fucking bullshit.

can you relate to one tone + affect more than the other?

Each has its use and its place, but if they are to represent two ends of an imagined (and very unrealistic) continuum of discourse, then I'd say I lean more toward snark, as it affords more opportunities for wit. Pure smarm, as I understand the word, has no acidity, no bitterness, and no salt.

The main thing I took away from that snark/smarm article was

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.pnghttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.pnghttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.pnghttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.pnghttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.pnghttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.pnghttp://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198ecyli9eiqipng/ku-xlarge.png

haha whoa look at all that whitespace.

Aimless, if you roll snark, then don't employ the softheaded dismissive tactics of smarm - keep it sharp ffs

snark obvs can be smarmy too

Are you really saying "one or the other, choose NOW"? xp

what happened to you, imago? when you first arrived here you used to have an appreciation for differences of meanings among words. Smuggery and smarminess may have some areas of coextension, but they are not the same thing. Just as much, snark and smarm cannot be made to do the work of opposites to which all discourse must invariably tend, because discourse is a much wider category than these two can summarize, but also because they are not true opposites and cannot be made so without doing violence to their real meanings. Have some cake. You'll feel better.

snark isn't about repeatedly hammering on the idea that you're the only one questioning the smarm in the room

Did people really read all nine thousand fucking words of that?

I did, yes.

^^ good snark x-post

It turns out I can read someone talk shit about David Denby for a pretty long time without getting bored.

it's a pretty quick read

what happened to you, imago? when you first arrived here you used to have an appreciation for differences of meanings among words. Smuggery and smarminess may have some areas of coextension, but they are not the same thing. Just as much, snark and smarm cannot be made to do the work of opposites to which all discourse must invariably tend, because discourse is a much wider category than these two can summarize, but also because they are not true opposites and cannot be made so without doing violence to their real meanings. Have some cake. You'll feel better.

― Aimless, Thursday, 5 December 2013 18:47 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you assail me!

right, ok. ignoring all of the various objectionables you deliberately chuck in to wind me up, smuggery and smarminess are two sides of the same passive-aggressive debate-closing coin. snark otoh is usually used to open debate, to enjoin a critical discourse that can be resolved through sincerity. the discourse itself is a complex and multivalent thing, but it can be enjoined snarkily or closed down smarmily

snark otoh is usually used to open debate

lol are you serious

it's used to poke a big hole in whatever status quo smarminess is stopping an actual debate from happening

got a feeling that this will be the great clusterfuck of our time.(...)
― veneer timber (imago)

Tend to agree. This ball of yarn is going to strangle the kitten.

Joe Lieberman as a pinnacle of smarminess is something I can endorse

snark otoh is usually used to open debate, to enjoin a critical discourse that can be resolved through sincerity.

UH

lol are you serious

― SHAUN (DJP), Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:02 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! or at least it's my own MO. obviously the more cosmic debates of our age can be enjoined more serenely, but when it comes to addressing injustice in any form, a degree of oppositional bearing is required

the other way to carry a debate is to propose an alternative in positive & euphoric terms, which is my preferred method, but sometimes this alternative is extremely difficult to propose without first pointing out the deficiencies of the orthodox

http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/53159/

there is a non-trivial gap between "snark is used to do X" and "I use snark to do X" that I'd like to think anyone interested in engaging in debate/conversation would be aware of when presenting their position

smuggery and smarminess are two sides of the same passive-aggressive debate-closing coin

At least I now can make hazy guesses about what is enraging you.

I think the biggest problem is that we haven't really agreed on a definition of 'snark' - I'm taking it to be any form of aggressive or confrontational verbal challenge, but you're possibly (and please clarify!) regarding it as a means of steam-letting, a sort of gratuitous attack that ignores the complexities of a situation & reduces to crude oppositional binaries (which I'm completely against as well, hence my loathing for newspapers)

i open my debates with sharks and i always win debates because my sharks are people eaters

I prefer to open an argument with a sharp slap to my opponent's face.

differences between snarking and trolling are difficult to delineate

That's only because the definition of "trolling" has come to imply insincerity.

Snark, as I once knew it, was always a form of belittlement. It was delivered from a position of standing above and apart from the object being snarked at.

Yeah, I'm talking about parallel snark, or even upward snark. Perhaps then it isn't snark. Perhaps then it is *railing* or *fiyah* or w/e

socrates was totes a troll, but probably not so snarky

or "satire"

It can be delivered from any position

recumbent is nice

I'm not sold on satire. The more I know of satire, the more implicitly reactionary it seems, at least in its pure, unsynthesised form*. I might unload some snark on pure satire @ some point.

*Plenty of brilliant things are possible when incorporating elements of satire but also proposing constructive alternatives to what is being satirised

Snark is either well or badly written, that is all.

satire is sustained snark, narratologically organized, aimed at the rich fucks/assholes

Made recourse to Urban Dictionary and found:

1. snark noun Combination of "snide" and "remark". Sarcastic comment(s).

Which seems like a fair enough general definition and probably an accurate etymology, too.

At its best! But then what? It's a good way to open a debate, but not sustain it (hence everything I wrote above) xp

satire is sustained snark, narratologically organized, aimed at the rich fucks/assholes

historically it did tend to be pretty reactionary though cf Juvenal

aristophanes? lucian? jesus? rabelais? chaucer? swift? sterne?

Satire isnt defined by target

historically it did tend to be pretty reactionary though cf Juvenal

― combination hair (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, December 5, 2013 2:37 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yes for example see his work "Back That Sass Up"

qualmsley a lot of those ppl had a lot more than satire going for them

Ironically enough the feeling I got the most from reading that article was exactly the kind of line building and binary creating that David Eggers did in that one famous book he had that I skimmed and ironically enough it caused me to do the same thing w/r/t article, i.e. skim the rest of the 9000 words and close the tab

Satire isnt defined by target

Results 1-3 for 'satire' at target.com: 21 Jump Street, Fight Club, The Campaign. Pretty much sums it up imo.

I'm not sold on satire. The more I know of satire, the more implicitly reactionary it seems, at least in its pure, unsynthesised form*. I might unload some snark on pure satire @ some point.

*Plenty of brilliant things are possible when incorporating elements of satire but also proposing constructive alternatives to what is being satirised

sorry to burst your bubble chum but GR iz what's known as 'menippean satire'

^^in the biz

Most of my favourite texts & artworks have a satirical spark to them, but to allude to GR as 'pure satire' would be the literary equivalent of calling Mozart a tunesmith

is swift reactionary?

Menippean satire (looked it up) would seem to be the holistic, synthesised satire I've been advocating for - i.e. not purely satire any more but equal parts philosophy & art

Swift isn't reactionary of course, but then as I've said I'm not sure Swift is purely satirical - the idea of satire in itself being just the act of parodying & attacking the orthodoxy - the initial assault that paves the way for something else to flood its place, in the absence of which all we have is a dead sacred cow & the past, which is the implicit place-filler

Mozart was a tunesmith... of transcendent ability.

I'm more attacking the likes of Brass Eye, which grows less important to me the older I get - now there is something which just wants to watch the world burn

Not that it didn't have its moments of hilarity & insight, but it doesn't do anything positive for me

Aw man, Brass Eye is so funny.

& could even be seen as smarmily satirical (there's yer synthesis) - smarm as absence of constructiveness, absence of engagement

It's funny, yes! and I will laugh! but what then?

Is laughter the end?

Laughter is one among many ends. I find it is better as a means.

but it doesn't do anything positive for me

I guess it would help me if you could give me an example of a tv comedy that did something positive for you wrt its satiric targets.

I'm pretty much over TV comedy, but idk Curb Your Enthusiasm shows us how to (try to) have grace under derision? That's something I guess? The TV comedy I love tends to be less satiric, more surreal, e.g. Limmy

I also think Stewart Lee falls just on the right side of having something positive & useful to say while raising satiric hell

You ever done The Larry Sanders Show, imago? Not really a pertinent question in the manner of this discussion like, but just anyway.

not seen, no

I was sort of thinking aloud, it has aged better than Brasseye, a real vintage.

It is the best thing ever

brass eye is hilare
larry sanders is hilare

is The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin satire?

I would never re-watch Brasseye - it belongs to it's era for me, whereas Larry Sanders has been re-watched multiple times, been like a comfort blanket in my life. Definitely got me through some dark times.

Their aims and formats are so different though.

Lj what is your favourite season of the simpsons

I guess Brass Eye is useful as a gateway drug for undergraduates into the wonderful world of scepticism towards mediation

All Simpsons is good, man. IDK

I never go out of my way to watch it but whenever I do it's total genius. Hooray for The Simpsons

^^^^ clearly someone who has never seen the 300th episode

may you never be disillusioned! xp

I think I'll never be bummed on The Simpsons because I have such a casual relationship with it. Amuses me to see people shrieking about fallen idols who can also quote every episode

it's more like ppl who think a band's fallen off badly but still know the words to the old songs imo, but let's get back on track

aristophanes? lucian? jesus? rabelais? chaucer? swift? sterne?

Juvenal prominently missing from that list! he & swift are both pretty reactionary imo though and the sort of emotional grounding of most (all?) satire is "the world has gone to hell, I'll now show how" which I consider a reactionary position

Everything is better as an end, thus is avoided delusion imo

inc comedy & people, kant bedamned

non-reactionary satire: twain, orwell, heller, lenny bruce

Buñuel ;-)

^^^cosmic satire; also guide to life & thought; also entirely empathetic & noble-hearted treatise on how to escape the dullard logic of the Oppressor; also brilliant art; gnaaaaaaaaaaa

lots of c18th satire about the folly and vanity of human reason & its plans to make the world better - & if you don't think you can come up with a plan to improve the world, if you think we're confused and corrupt animals (who have fallen a long way from our Classical prime), then you most likely choose to stick close to tradition as probable best guide for a decent life (the other option is being Rochester, which is hard).

woah so this was the thread the smarm article showed up in :/

a sort of gratuitous attack that ignores the complexities of a situation & reduces to crude oppositional binaries

that is what "snark" is!!

did you read the article, it's rly good

(the other option is being Rochester, which is hard)

I'll bet (fnarr)

both "smarm" and "snark" do this -- one is an attack and the other is a defense, but they function similarly

makes a case for "snark" as uhh just being real or something. getting in touch with the mencken in our hearts

Matt P: ILX's #1 snark connoisseur <3

As I said upthread, I liked the article a lot, and I'd say that 'snark' under my own definition (see above) is a much more open & constructive means of initiating debate

both are intellectually lazy and dismissive and make the people who use them a lot look like dicks

he says there's bad snark and good snark, good snark is not-bullshit, put pointedly, i agreed

'snark' under my own definition

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH you have this endearing way of being totally absurd

having the reserves of powerful righteousness to use either one is a sign of dick-leaning behavior imo
sarahell otm

he says it's better for people to look like dicks in the name of good faith opinion than for people to say "doing x is bad because it makes you look like a dick"

I think good snark is just confrontational impoliteness tbf sarahell, something you're perhaps not unacquainted with

yeah exactly

whole article seemed very "william s. burroughs" to me, personally.

good read, i recommend it

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH you have this endearing way of being totally absurd

― sarahell, Thursday, 5 December 2013 22:54 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean this^ is snarky and I'm crying rn

gawker

The article was also much less useful in defining snark (as we're discovering) than it was in defining the nefarious techniques of smarm & debate-closing, which is largely why it was written in the first place I'd say

honestly, I couldn't finish it because it seemed like a not-entirely coherent series of pot-shots at people he loathes -- it's more coherent than the chris ott diatribe, but it still seems dishonest to me. Then again, I generally dislike the tone of gawker writers, and this one exemplified that.

This came across as a lot more personal & wild than most Gawker stuff I've read

I mean, its incoherence was a good thing, if anything. It was a rant.

rants are the worst!

what tone do you like sarahell

I consider it good snark...

So, if you are impolitely confronted with some kind of dismissive bullshit, you consider that to be "good"?

fuck off

you're the king of smarmy jackholes on this site

go clarrisa explains it all on yahoo answers or something

"like" in terms of finding an article purporting to be thoughtful credible cultural criticism, or just in general?

Ah, now we've constructively opened the debate, according to imago's tems.

If I'm impolitely confronted by a thoughtful argument that happens to contain a vicious dissection of received bullshit wisdom, that's good

We are busily adding terms to impolite and confronatational now?

I think the biggest problem here is the word 'snark' as I keep saying. I'm still looking for an alternative. Invective? Thunderword?

i question how much dissection is going on, versus knee-jerk dismissiveness ala the "hemiola" argument on the chief keef thread

Sarahell, you know knee-jerk dismissiveness is my fucking bugbear. I even listened to like four tracks of that HAIM album! In a ROW!

lj - you are defending something different than what the guy in the article is trying to defend

i think the guy in the article is trying to say that upper class, old, white dudes often talk in a patronizing, smug way, especially when they lack the intellectual fortitude to mount any kind of substantial argument

U forgot str8 mordy

Yeah 'smarm' as defined in the article seems to be the kind of thing you'd notice if you were really attuned to covering the media, like if, for example, you were a writer for Gawker and that was your job

But since I never venture outside the safe confines of ILX the article didn't spark any glint of recognition inside me so I skimmed to the end and enjoyed the rabbit dividers

why is it that the worst posters are always the ones bumping and posting on this thread

Ya

dave eggers isn't that old

why is it that the worst posters are always the ones bumping and posting on this thread

― flopson, Thursday, 5 December 2013 23:28 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're gonna have to explain that one

why is it that the worst posters are always the ones bumping and posting on this thread

― flopson, Thursday, December 5, 2013 3:28 PM (2 minutes ago)

who are you again?

Also kind of brew my mind when he said he had been working on the article for a year

Felt like the kind of thing you'd dash off the night before it was due. Just a bunch of little slices strung together, barely

tbf flopson introduced me to one of my favourite new bands so I'm gonna cut him maybe a tiny bit of slack

Just a bunch of little slices strung together, barely

yeah, that was the impression I got

it seemed really polished to me.

why is it that the worst posters are always the ones bumping and posting on this thread

'Cause I'm bored. foad

tbf flopson introduced me to one of my favourite new bands so I'm gonna cut him maybe a tiny bit of slack

― veneer timber (imago), Thursday, December 5, 2013 3:33 PM (4 minutes ago)

did mopsy and cottontail also give you dope band recs too?

tbf if there isn't a shit archetypical indie shit band called peter rabbit already then i'll be amazed

We're a two-piece called Jemima Puddleduck and we love our cuddly instruments so much we made sounds with them!

^inchoate satire

*dies*

Peter Rabbit. 214 likes. Acoustic music inspired by romance and the lack thereof.

do you think Jemima Puddleduck knit hats for Innocent Smoothies bottles?

it seemed really polished to me.

Maybe I'll reread it

Today we are under a pressure system that is giving me the worst headache

I'll be less grumpy when it passes

bumping this thread is about replacing the smarm of ilx w/ the malaise of abject boredom

the structure, tone, examples, framing all seemed pretty deliberate. idk, mainly it felt like every other sentence was a big t-bomb. there's a lot of smarm in my world rn, it is power. people get really mad when you call them out on it, and when you do it turns into blame-the-victim. xp jemima puddleduck, lawdy xxp i'm way grumpy today :(, good luck

bumping this thread is about replacing the smarm of ilx w/ the malaise of abject boredom

― Mordy , Thursday, December 5, 2013 3:44 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there was a boredom poll

not saying i'm a particularly good poster, but i get what i want out of ilx and don't complain about it. i have complained in the past it's true but fuck that noise. if i don't contribute anything worthwhile to ilx then i'm just getting a good deal off your backs. y'all are just sitting shivering around a dwindling fire accusing each other for not throwing another log on it

I've not been complaining about ILX here so much as discussing an article that happened to be posted here & which has implications about certain aspects of ILX discourse that I also feel to be somewhat debate-closing (although much-improved from years bygone)

& all major contributors to this thread are also major contributors to the cultural backnforth out there in the nonmeta ILX realm

i got mad logs, just saving up xp

anyway, you posted about BLANCHE x3 and pretty much only me & ed III have followed that up so it's not like the logs always produce much flame hey-ho my dude

xxp - picturing flopson as the rabbit in the paragraph dividers

I'm more interested in that article as an analysis of The Oppressor than an analysis of ILX

i didn't even read any of the posts this revive tbh

i didn't even read any of the posts this revive tbh

― flopson, Thursday, December 5, 2013 3:52 PM (13 seconds ago

HAHAHAHAHAH

reeling at these hard hitting sarahell zings

pointing out that you have a username that recalls a fictional rabbit from a kids' book does not equal a zing in my book

Federal Level OPS: On

naaaaaaaaaaarc

*ON, even

i have no idea what you're on about lj

Slow Access Realisation Ability HELL

ok this article has now appeared on my fb feed, posted by someone who wants to apply it to art criticism

Now do me xp

Despite Acridity, You're Oppressed

"holds forthright views on food and how to eat it"

― a strident purist when it comes to band-related shirts (Noodle Vague), Friday, November 15, 2013 7:38 AM (2 weeks ago)

the run of NV posts upthread are still hilarious

the run of NV posts upthread are still hilarious

As on just about every thread on here.

Despite Acridity, You're Oppressed

Invalid. Sorry, you're disqualified

Denied Access, yo

u shd have done an IMAGO there tbh, dayo - also DQd

also ffs Why Instantly Neat Stuff

I like stuff to be neat is why

like my stuff unadulterated, like my satire

+ u shd drink a glass off instantly neat stfu haha jk

imago i want to talk about how yr capitalization aesthetic just makes me think of german

i made some str8 fire posts to rolling philosophy & nobody took them srsly coz of the capitalisations i reckon, wankers

Did You hear that The wire Magazine have Finally stopped bein Bonkers about caPitalisation

gNa POsT lIkE tHIs FRoM nOw oN xoXoxOxOXoxoX

i swear imago i took them exackly as seriously as i felt the presentation and the metaphysics warranted

fair enough but the summative Instant of my Argument is marooned at the tail end, shortly to be Consum'd amidst Oblivion

and i adore faux 18th century orthography as much as anybody

Curses. I Abscond from this Infernal Mummery

faith in the message obviates its reception

Such Flotsam is what one must Cling to

lots of c18th satire about the folly and vanity of human reason & its plans to make the world better - & if you don't think you can come up with a plan to improve the world, if you think we're confused and corrupt animals (who have fallen a long way from our Classical prime), then you most likely choose to stick close to tradition as probable best guide for a decent life (the other option is being Rochester, which is hard).

this is totally true - Sterne is the example of qualmsey's that's dearest to my heart - but idk 18c satire always seemed to me like that weird British iteration of the very thing the Romans used to do, i.e., cite as their model something to which they weren't really faithful/beholden at all (Greece in the case of Romans)

I hold with "satura totam nostram est" - Greek precedent is so mild, English/American inheritors go so far off- but the pure stuff is plainly and nakedly conservative imo. I don't like it less for that except ok maybe a little, who can stand to read Juvenal's 7th not me.

Swift's naked Conservatism launches into a very different sea i think

correction Juvenal's 6th.

Got some Swift on the shelf, need to engage rather than feed my addiction for violent S Korean gangsta movies. I am just a lazy thick bastard, if it feels like I need to push myself I always go back to the crime fiction.

I haven't read swift in many years but when I did my experience was:how alive this sounds! how present he feels! idk though 18c stuff always feels fresh to me in a way 19c almost never does

yeah, back in college, I took a survey of satire class, and a good 1/3 of the reading list was 18c stuff, and at first I was like, "awww man" but then after reading it, I decided it was p dope

On our bookshelf there is an Oxford Unversity Press edition of A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, that is my next mission.

Let's go, I'm not seeing anything in the way of content here.

just FYI this article ruled ass

Damo Tale of a Tub is probly the best book ever written do it

do it, Swift is the greatest.

true that the C18th satirists end up in an entirely different space from their Roman models - some of the kick or salt or now-ness of them comes from where they're at imo - like their conservatism is at the moment when autonomous human reason has decided to put the world to rights, and does a frighteningly good job of changing everything - scientific revolution is the obvious one but also a whole nexus of things around finance – the Bank of England & national debt change the state, money becomes paper - notes, stocks, shares etc, a new class becomes harder to ignore because of this, London becomes Europe's largest city since ancient Rome… Swift &co are constantly pulling out the demons or aporiai that are hiding behind the triumph of that world, which feel like some of the base conditions of all this (waves hand at London, capitalism, most stuff).

i haven't been posting as much on ILX this is probably why

^ reads both ways imo

On the snark piece, I read it just now and though he makes some good observations I wasn't hugely impressed.

The idea that snark only ever undermines power or is anti-establishment by nature just fails, there is a snark industry just as there is a snarm one.

Also he acts like snark is somehow a rare commodity or something precious when the net is saturated with it. A few Buzzfeeds (surprise surprise a business uses positivity as a means to sell product) don't change the fact that the web is full of lazy, kneejerk whinging, or the fact that the language of invective is stronger than the language of praise, and hence it's often used as a crutch by the writer with nothing to say.

The piece seems to show faith in the idea that negativity has more integrity than positivity, or that it's more worthy of trust, this is a pretty damaging philosophy and one that smarm itself has created.

Smarm seeks to own our benevolent interactions and our happy feelings, our memories, nostalgia, and sell them back to us. To distrust positivity is to let it win in a really grim way.

Distrust people with an agenda, or the powerful, fine.

But don't adopt negativity as a manifesto just because smarm wants to own positivity.

I see some people have kind of said this upthread. Agree that the piece read pretty badly too, I mean, it needs a severe editing in my view.

this article was really great. i don't think its supposed to be about everything ever, just a specific cultural moment where 'respectable' thought is guarded by what other places we call tone-policing or concern-trolling. nor is it arguing about negativity vs. positivity in general -- its about sort of a deepgoing hypocrisy packaged up in sunny diplomatic language. is not saying distrust people with an agenda, its saying distrust the pervasive denial of the hidden agenda!

also it wasn't about satire in the least, which is a whole different thing.

this article is the best i've read about satire all year, btw: http://www.mrdestructo.com/2013/04/point-counterpoint-is-satire-even-thing.html

(& really don't see how we can be discussion 20c satire and not bring up nathaniel west, ishmael reed, george schuyler, budd schulberg, and a few more besides)

smarm piece was great yeah

Not sure that post really references the piece, Sterling.

local garda are you basically saying he didn't argue the opposite of his thesis enough? the articles not called "on smarm oh and snark has its limitations, too." if it were it would be like twice as long and honestly who even got to the end of this thing. snark only really came up as a manifestation of smarm being calling out as snark anything remotely disruptive of the status quo.

snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm! snark! smarm!

local garda are you basically saying he didn't argue the opposite of his thesis enough? the articles not called "on smarm oh and snark has its limitations, too." if it were it would be like twice as long and honestly who even got to the end of this thing. snark only really came up as a manifestation of smarm being calling out as snark anything remotely disruptive of the status quo.

I disagree with his thesis, that's kind of the point of discussion, sorry if the article isn't "meant" to contain points I agree with... v strange rebuttal.

Think my disagreement with it is clear in the above post, or the problems I have with it.

I agree with you that it's way too long tho.

i thought u were saying it's not balanced enough by not being equally critical of snark--kind of a smarmy position~ tbh!-- but maybe i just eidn't read to the point or don't recall where he says snark is rare commodity and that negativity is his namifesto

Not sure that post really references the piece, Sterling.

― Legitimate space tale (LocalGarda), Saturday, December 7, 2013 1:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you mean my post doesn't describe what the piece you think you read was? so that seems to be my disagreement -- we both see a totally different central argument/purpose of the piece, which isn't necc. so much pro-snark as anti-anti-snark (since anti-snark=smarm)

btw sorry everybody for my posts the other day, don't think any of u are the worst ilx posters, was just being sociopathic 4 kicks. actually kind of an interesting debate. feel like for an article trying to define something using like a million examples most of the criticisms itt (aimless, sarahell "just random things strung together") were pretty void of content and look like more of an expression of tone preference ("i don't like gawker"). like "Smarm seems to be a whole series of specific quotes that he doesn't like, but his larger point never really coheres and his notion of 'smarm' as a rhetorical device never gets adequately defined" i'm pretty sure it gets very specifically defined more than once! seemed like the whole thing was a kind of elliptical narrowing in on the concept, which is why it felt so repetitive and overly long. it was just hammering the same point over & over with more examples. but i think that's a perfectly good way to define something.

^

ILX needs a certified therapist, not this quackery!

I actually think, w the latest revive, that this has become the most interesting ILX thread in,a fortnight

still think Mordy shd articulate exactly why he posted it to this thread, if only so that a rain might come

I think it defines smarm really well, but I think (a) it creates a two-sided coin of snark v smarm without acknowledging the fact that one depends on the other for its existence and (b) assumes smarm is safely employed by known "enemies" in a conflict that has some truth in it, arguable for politics, false for art, even with its attempts to cite movies "we all agree" are shit or whatever. Fuck that kind of objectivism and its slippery slope.

Oh jeez LJ what's w the Travis Bickle act?

xp

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/dave-eggers-tom-scocca-and-being-nice.html

huh i guess i was mocking this http://www.vpsingles.com/pics/shrug.gif
Why have audiences at concerts gotten so boring in the past 10 years?

Gladwell goes too far the other way. Is it really so hard to believe that both snark and smarm are regularly employed to reinforce a given status quo? "Be nice" and "be angry and authentic" are just two sides of the same coin. Innocent Smoothie and Brewdog.

otm, and you could reduce the latter to "be tough" (or "cool", "real" etc.)

Exactly, like shock horror, abstract reduction of worldviews to a one-word "nice" or "nasty" catch-all is not nuanced enough in the real world.

this seems rly caseinpoint:

And as for laying down rules for other people, Eggers has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books and worked on three screenplays. He has started three magazines. When he was unhappy with the publishing world, he went out and started his own publishing company. When he thought that disadvantaged children needed better educational opportunities, he founded two nonprofits. When he tells students that they ought to aspire to a primary relationship to art—to put more energy into making art than into denigrating the art of others—he is speaking from the heart. You have to be running pretty low on ammunition to look at someone like that and call him full of shit.

how dare you call this writer full of shit for things he wrote: look at all the companies he's started! plus he is speaking from the heart. tsk tsk @ the level of yr discourse

that lrb thing it linx to about british comedy is good tho

the one whose thoughtfully chosen primary source lol gladwell steals for his kicker

Our attention is both finite and worth something; we should not spend it on the VMAs, Anthony Weiner, recreational misandry, or the boilerplate opinions of others. And yet these things enrage us. We can’t live this way. We were so mad, staring at our phone, reading opinions, we just walked into a planter. Our friend calls us and says, “I need help, I think my phone is making me depressed. I want to keep looking at it when I’m looking at it, but as soon as I look up, my body lets out this involuntary sigh, like a stick yanked from the mud, like, What have I done?” We are grateful to be on the phone, so that we can’t look at our phone.

http://nplusonemag.com/rage-machine

Honestly, because of the Internet, because of people’s stupidity, because of people’s either fake political correctness, or the right-wing fake concern about people using language that they would use in their bedroom (but in a derogatory destructive way), it’s not even worth saying certain things anymore because you just don’t want it taken out of context, and you don’t wanna defend it because the minute you have to start defending it, that means you’re explaining your work, and the work that I do can’t be explained, and I don’t wanna explain it. I’ve never used a word about anybody that didn’t have many, many layers and meanings and double-entendres, and that wasn’t laced with irony. So a few things that I might have said ten, fifteen, twenty years ago pre-social media, I wouldn’t even bother saying today. I’m like, I’m not gonna be your guinea pig. Fuck it. I just won’t.

http://www.theawl.com/2014/02/our-lives-with-the-stupid-masses-of-people-out-there-that-are-on-that-fuckin-social-media

bonus comment from freddie deboer on that awl article

I've always argued a lot, which suits me fine. The difference lately has been that I'm always defending myself about stuff I haven't said and don't believe, rather than defending myself about stuff I have said and do believe. I put so many hedges into my writing about what I am explicitly not saying that it takes up the majority of the text. But if you don't do that, someone will squint hard enough and say, AHA! You're really saying X terrible thing! Even though, you know, I haven't said anything like X terrible thing. It's exhausting.

^why I'm not clicking on that thread today

the conclusion on that n+1 piece: Truth is not an imperative, but something that must be discovered. Unlike liquid opinion, truth does not always circulate. It is that which you experience, deeply, and cannot forget. The right to not care is the right to sit still, to not talk, to be subject to unclarity and allow knowledge to come unbidden to you. To be in a constant state of rage, by contrast, is only the other side of piety and pseudoscience, the kind of belief that forms a quick chorus and cannot be disproved. Scroll down your Facebook feed and see if you don’t find one ditto after another. So many people with “good” or “bad politics,” delivered with conviction to rage or applause; so little doubt, error, falsifiability—surely the criteria by which anything true, or democratic, could ever be found.

otm, but ILX is better than most in this regard

The only one whose posting style I much like anymore is Tuomas.

niklas luhmann has a bit somewhere about how communication (in all forms but especially language) works as a kind of lure or trap. once you've perceived it then understanding often follows automatically. once you've understood, it's already too late. even non-response works in this context as a kind of communicative response. you're playing by rules that are already set in advance. in this sense, communicating "first" is an inherent advantage.

sometimes it feels like the internet culture of "think pieces" (which are usually just op-ed type things run through a grad school curriculum, it seems) work in that way. once an opinion is stated it's hard to avoid having your own opinion (or "belief"). this is how those pieces are so good at "connecting" to other communications on the internet. sometimes it actually feels anxious to NOT have an opinion with the constant flood of information coming at you (ie, what Peirce was on about way back when in "The Fixation of Belief").

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3065/catbitewj1.gif

not the posts so much but ilx in general seems really sleepy for a few weeks now? maybe it's just the summer doldrums?

You mean you can't decide which one of Taylor Swift and Carlos Santana to vote for?

i feel like there's less music chat lately, or threads where a whole load of people get excited about a new album or something. probably are these, just not albums i care that much about...

but yeah, on the whole it's been a bit quiet.

Music sucks these days.

today has been something

a bitter lettuce to swallow

that thread has genuinely been a highlight

Did we ever sort this one out folks

leap day doldrums

leap day should be a day when you can start literally anything with impunity, but we've gone the other way

i guess 'blettuce' is as good as it gets

Have yis an actually good thread to point me at or what

when 3 ppl get it together we'll have a precovers album that i'm on

other than this idk, anyone seen any woman-to-man proposals today in public

what thread

Songs of Experience? Street King Immortal?

leap day should be a day when you can start literally anything with impunity, but we've gone the other way

― odysseus (imago), Monday, February 29, 2016 1:44 PM (24 minutes ago)

http://i.imgur.com/yT4pqxK.jpg

fun to pretend that's an our love to admire era interpol poster and sing that post like banks would

First actual genuine out loud LOL I've had from ILX in years.

I like how a thread called "Why have posts on ILX gotten so boring in the past 10 years?" turned into a clusterfuck over a gawker article.