The Curmudgeon’s Guide to 2009, or what I wish would go away from the Internet in the new year
A New Year is not a New Year without a lot of predictions and resolutions. I’ve mentioned some of those here this week. But I also think a New Year isn’t a New Year without a little curmudgeon-like list of things that we would be better off without in the new year.
So here goes.
Numbered blog lists – Are there really only seven habits of highly effective people? Do we really only have 10 web sites for great multimedia? Are there really only 20 WordPress plug-ins that every blog publisher needs? Okay, so maybe this is just me, but I’m seriously tired of numbered lists in blog posts. I understand why people do it – it’s easy to remember, it makes people think there’s a small number of steps that can push them over some sort of imaginary threshhold into greatness. But it’s old. It’s beyond cliche. And besides that, it’s not the way life works. Seriously, if there were just six steps to being a millionaire, don’t you think we’d all already be there?
The BCS – The Bowl Championship Series has *never* worked. Until we – the football viewing public – can get the fat cat presidents of the top football conferences to install an actual playoff system into their sham of a football season, this isn’t really a democratic nation. Seriously, why does Utah, which has an undefeated record, end up kicking Alabama’s butts and then not get any consideration at all for the overall championship? And why does the ACC get 10 teams out of 12 teams in the league in bowl games? Seriously, this mess has to go.
Andrew Keen – Okay, seriously, Andrew Keen had a good schtick a couple of years ago with his neo-aristocratic mewling about the lower standards brought about by the Internet – which he wrote about in the intellectually tepid Cult of the Amateur. But his train has left the station. He’s actually taken to writing about the economic impact of the Internet and asserting that it could bring back the Great Depression. He seems equally fascinated with evoking Godwin’s Law in his own blog posts. Read this fisking from Sadly, No! for a more complete takedown of a shock jock of the 21st century.
Internet media stars – Can we just lock up Jason Calicanis, Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Jeff Jarvis and all the other Internet pundits in a room and let them read each other’s RSS feeds for the next year? Hmmm? Seriously, do we really need Jarvis to write a book (so old media) about “What would Google Do?” as if Google was Jesus? WTF? And why is Clay Shirky pimping himself as the new media guru with a book? How do we not ask if irony is not alive and well with that kind of stuff? Hmmm?
What Newspapers Need to Do blog posts – I know the industry is “dying.” I know newspaper leaders can’t seem to figure out their business model. So go ahead and invent something already. Enough navel-gazing. Enough blogging about “what is wrong with journalism.” Just do it. Innovate. Be real. Be transparent. Be a rock ‘n’ roll example of what you want to see in the future and STFU about “woe is me.”
• Mitch McConnell – I don’t delve into politics too often, but Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, is a ridiculous example of a politician who wants to play chicken with our economy rather than actually deal with the economic meltdown that is going on. As far as I’m concerned, the entire Republican Party in Congress needs to spend the next two years playing “Let’s see who can STFU longest” instead of standing in the way of cleaning up the mess that has been the last eight years of G.O.P. rule.
Generational Stereotypes – Do we really need the uptick in articles and blog posts about the differences between the Baby Boomers, Gen X and “Digital Natives“? Can’t we all just agree that we’re in this together? My mom is a baby boomer, my kids are “digital natives,” and yet I find the whole stereotyping thing to be utter Bullshit. Aren’t we all Americans? Isn’t there a common thread? I think that’s what drew me to the Obama campaign in the first place – he wasn’t looking at one group as opposed to another.
Seriously, I don’t care if you want to stereotype people, but leave the blogosphere out of it. Let us live and survive together.
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