What started as a rant on people who play games turned into a rant on my writing. I had a post, ready to go, timed to auto-post at 17:00 in the 24-hour clock in WordPress, and I took it out of the queue. It needed a re-write, and a re-focus. For once, I edited myself. This is a rare night. Tonight, I pitched my original post, and totally rewrote it. I never do that. Ever. The post title is the same, and some of the details of the story, but it's something totally different. It was originally about how Nicholas Carr was hating on Second Life. More specifically, the people who are protesting a copying thing in Second Life. I admit, I do these posts just to get the mad Techmeme-love, but in writing it, I found I was doing it all for the wrong reason. Back when I started interacting with people on the internet, it was because I was trying to create relationships with other people. Sadly, with all the social networks and Web 2.0, we've lost touch with the human side of the internet. Today I was happily working on a post to get links for posting a story about a group of people who are protesting inside a video game. Yeah, that's a little too geeky, even for me. Rather, it was the post title that intrigued me, "The dingo stole my avatar." That was a popular meme back in the late 80s, not because of the seriousness of what happened, but because Meryl Streep butchered the line. Yes, she butchered it, in the worst accent of her career. Evil Angels won an Oscar, but the line lived on from pure snark. Seeing that line after all these years took me back. Someday I hope to not have to rely on a catchy post title to garner interest. It would help if I had something interesting to say, be it contrarian, evil, blissfully ignorant, or just speeled incorectly. Being smart and concise doesn't seem to work on the internet. I'm reminded what an instructor told me one day, and how to be the best presenter possible:

  1. Be brief
  2. Be brilliant
  3. Be gone

Since I've no prayer of being that middle item, I'll strive to do the other two, thus fooling enough people into thinking I'm worth a listen. Then I'll be gone. I like to think I'm the best title-maker ever. What with the hopes of SEO and getting interested readers, I'll just have to think I've got smart readers who aren't interested in just what the title says. People who want to read, and think, deeper. That way, I can concentrate on making things people want to see, not just things that get me on meme-tracking front pages. Believe me, I've tried that already.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-11-16T23:58:56.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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