Nov
8th
Thu
8th
2007
To put it another way: “distance from the center” presumes not only that everybody agrees on what that center is, but that one is either near to it or far from it, and that being far from it can confer some kind of ironic virtue. This is the same kind of mindset that valorizes “outsider art” for the straw dangling from the corner of its mouth rather than for itself. What’s fun and vital about the blogosphere is not that it doesn’t speak with the questionably unified (“smothered”?) voice of mass culture, but that individual bloggers only need to speak for themselves and about their own personal interests, and don’t need to triangulate themselves against any distinct or nebulous center; it doesn’t matter who’s paying attention and who isn’t, even when lots of people are paying attention! Each blogger is a gravitational center, great or small, but there’s no sun they’re all orbiting around.
— douglas wolk, again, from the interview with Joel Turnipseed on kottke in reference to the decentralized nature of the web, our modern culture, etc.
