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Some changes to the "Daily Escapism" list this week. The casualties include A Softer World for losing it's edge, Megatokyo for losing the plot, and Overheard in New York for losing my interest.

New additions:

Rice Boy - A rambling adventure in a surreal and continually surprising world.

Minus - Tales of a magical girl, another Koala Wallop masterpiece.

Pictures for Sad Children - A gem of a find from Dresden Codak's favorites.

Perry Bible Fellowship - A Daily Orange alum. I am shamed by comparison.

Nothing is New

Continuing in the vein of received wisdom regarding teh Intarwebs, this shiny bauble from Making Light:

Anonymous nastiness is easy to write, and will always find an appreciative audience. I don’t care. It’s not a manifestation of the free and open discourse of the internet; it’s a thing that destroys that discourse. To be specific, it’s the same old trashmouthed bullying we all know from junior high and high school. Putting it on the net doesn’t cause it to develop any novel complexities or interesting emergent behaviors. It’s just the same old sh*t.

If you have a weblog or live journal, or you administer a website that has comment threads, stand up for yourself and your readers. The jerks are never going to like you, or praise you, or admit that you’re doing the right thing. And if you’re waiting for someone to give you permission to suppress and thereafter ignore malfeasants, you have it right now. If you want, I’ll make up a certificate. Go forth and civilize.

Mostly in reference to the recent calls for civility from Tim O'Reilly, a man who convinced the world to produce free content for him to drive his investment capital business, and Jimmy Wales, best known for creating the foundations for the largest repository of questionable information ever assembled.

Simple Truths

It disturbs me how frequently Tycho over at Penny Arcade will perfectly and unexpectedly articulate some deep thought rumbling deep within my own musings.

People seem to think that by posting in threads and agreeing with other people they are changing the world. They are not. They are posting in threads online. The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. Being outraged online is a form of entertainment, and refreshing a thread to receive a hit of consensus packs the thrill of genuine activism without requiring any sweat. I'm afraid this test may require more from the community than a sardonic jpeg.

Similarly, James Wolcott has a comment on the futility of the vox populi or, more frequently, the vox cognoscenti.

Oh god, not another national dialogue... National dialogues are a wordy ritual doomed to rhetorical stalemate and eventual exhaustion, since so few minds are ever changed;--a pretext for the usual roundup of pundits and thumbsuckers to leap aboard a moving controversy and hijack the stagecoach for their own purposes.

It is my sober and sacred duty to bring you these gems of wisdom as they surface amidst the shifting sands of the Innerwebs.

Brimley

Found at I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?

Public Service Announcement IV

Say it with Google Image Search

When a forum post starts to go bad:

Badass

The Pork Chop Express.


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Public Service Announcement

Say it with Pixels

Posting in forums. One day all human communication that does not involve ordering satellite service or magazine subscriptions will be conducted through this nascent technology. But posting is such a trying process - full of thought, introspection, careful reasoning, literary eloquence, and ultimately banging out whatever dribble spews from your head between looking at pictures of Jessica Simpson and googling your own name on lunch break.

So how can we further reduce this monumental intellectual burden? Forum graphics!

When you need to say something snarky, and you don't have a lot of time to think it up, fall back on a handy graphic that more or less gets across the kind of thing you were thinking of. Sorta.

If you are the posting type, feel free to use these wherever you deem appropriate.

The Wisdom of Warren

Mostly through Jason's influence (because my own reading habits are notoriously narrow unless acted upon by an outside force), I've become a fair-weather fan of Warren Ellis. He has some interesting thoughts on the lessons of Cabaret, re: Marilyn Manson's recent angsty references to it as nihilistic outsiderism.

The lesson of the 1930s is that, in a time of encroaching conservatism and creeping repression, the correct response is not to flush your fucking spine down the toilet.

Read the article. It's good.

Also have a look at this Brainpowered article from a while back.