Why Am I Not Surprised?

Heidi Montag's Breathtaking Performance

Oddly enough this is my second blog about Heidi Montag.

I would like to comment, not on Heidi and her performance at the Miss Universe pageant, but rather on the news coverage of her performance. Apparently, Mrs. Montag "tried to be" Britney Spears circa 2000 but "was" Millie Vanilli circa 1989. The public lashings from her uninspired performance have not stopped since.

Now, I don't want to defend Heidi Montag because I think she is utterly talentless. But come on, people. It's pop music from an ex-reality show co-star. Were you planning on being wowed?

And really, it's not even the ex-reality show co-star thing that sets the expectation. I'm sure that at some point, with the huge volume of reality shows being produced, there has to be a few cast members with genuine talent. The thing that should set the expectation level is the fact that it's pop sex music. She is swimming in an ocean of facade and artificiality.

This musical styling is made not because it's been rattling inside the heart and mind of an aspiring singer/songerwriter. It was made to be produced, packaged, and consumed. That's it. Heidi Montag didn't lie awake for weeks on end writing down lyrics like:

If you're in it for real
Go ahead, put it in me
I know that you want me
So take me

Heidi Montag probably didn't know this song existed until a week before she recorded it in a studio. So why does this matter? What about the performance?

Well, as I stated before–she's utterly talentless. So that's why she lip synced it. There's no way in hell she could have actually sang and danced like that in a live performance. But I don't think people should be as angry with her as they are. There was no effort or motivation put into producing the song that she sang or any future songs that she plans on singing, except to make money. It's sex pop. I mean, if the song and dance were entertaining enough, then sex pop wouldn't also come along with skimpy outfits. You wouldn't need it. Why should it have been a great performance? It's just to be consumed anyway. There's no art to it. I'm not saying everything has to be some artistic endeavor but this is clearly a sex pop song for teenage girls. How much gusto do you think she was willing to put into it? How spectacular were you people expecting it to be? And yes, Britney Spears put on a great performance at the MTV VMAs in 2000. And her mind and spirit have been slowly breaking down ever since.

Maybe Heidi is trying to protect her psyche. Who knows?

Why Twitter Needs to Be Stopped

Twitter is a child in the street screaming at the top of his lungs for more ice cream.

This is a response to a Datamation blog written by Mike Elgan called "Why the Twitter Haters Are Wrong".

They are not wrong. Twitter is arguably the worst thing for any society, regardless of political, economic, or cultural background.

Elgan's argument is that Twitter is free from criticism because it is simply a medium and not responsible for the knuckle-heads who use it. I strongly disagree. I believe, in the way Jerry Mander thinks that the television set is inherently evil and working against human beings, Twitter is–by the nature of it's programming–destructive to normal society.

On most other occasions, I strongly endorse personal responsibility. People shouldn't tweet about the minutiae of their lives every half-hour. But they do and it is then the rest of society's responsibility to not follow or listen to them. But this doesn't matter because even if we don't listen, people are still tweeting about the random crap in their pathetic lives.

Elgan quotes an article from the UK's Times Online which claims that tweeting "stems from a lack of identity"–in other words, tweeting=insecurity. Elgan responds by bringing attention to the fact that the Times Online article was only talking about a small subset of Twitter users. He claims that Twitter is not self-indulgent, narcissistic, or shallow but rather only this small demographic (young people) is.

Mike Egan says that in order to bypass the insecure and shallow on Twitter, simply do not follow them. But that does not stop them from being shallow and insecure. Twitter is a vessel for the insecure. On what planet can you have a worthwhile discourse with someone when you can only use 140 characters? The dictionary on my computer defines Twitter as "a series of short, high-pitched calls or sounds" and "idle or ignorant talk". Is this really what we've been obsessing over? Is this what has taken the world by storm? Idle or ignorant talk? What has become of us?

But even if you do choose to not follow them, the insecurity remains. Twitter isn't like a text message (which are generally much smaller than 140 characters) to one person, rather it is an announcement to the world. Regardless of the merit of the tweet (which for the most part is nonexistent), it is intrinsically insecure to make announcements to the world on such a frequent basis.

Moreover, it is quite narcissistic to think that all is dandy when you simply look the other way. Twitter is equipping individuals to be insecure, shallow, and narcissistic regardless of whether or not you follow them. The problem doesn't just go away when you choose not to listen. The problem is Twitter, not these people. Before Twitter, insecure and narcissistic people did not have a portal to illustrate their insecurity and narcissism, especially on a global scale. Elgan akins annoying Twitter users to annoying telephone callers–you don't get mad at the telephone when you get the call. But there is a huge difference between Twitter and a telephone.

First off, people do not use the telephone as much as they use Twitter. Individuals tweet 10-15 times a day. I might make 10-15 telephone calls in a week. When I call someone I am making a connection to one specific individual or location. When I tweet, I am offering an announcement to whoever is listening at a global scale. I can also have an intelligent conversation with someone on a telephone while on Twitter I have to wrack my brain to think of how to fit 200 characters into 140.

Now this all is not to say that every Twitter user is an egotistical self-indulgent narcissist. All I'm trying to get at is that Twitter facilitates this kind of behavior. In fact, this is really what it does best.

The sheer volume of tweets makes them all inconsequential. White noise eventually becomes a silence in itself. True, you can choose to follow whomever you wish but the fact remains–twitterers tweet a lot and mainly about nothing. Twitter is useless as a social tool. Human beings do not and should not communicate 140 characters at a time.

So besides casual chit-chat, Twitter is also being used as a marketing tool. I can't stress enough how ineffective it is. Businesses tweet to inform consumers about new deals and products and they generally get yelled at for spamming ads.

The last thing that Elgan mentions that I completely abhor is the idea that Twitter can be a breaking news resource. This idea goes back to my last blog about blogger responsibility.

No. Twitter can not and should not be used as a breaking news resource. Absolutely not. Let me explain.

I do realize that there are reputable publications that have Twitter accounts and that their news updates can be useful. But Twitter is a dangerous tool for news and editorial content because everyone is now a journalist/reporter. Early this year, a plane crashed in the Hudson River in New York and a man named Janis Krums not only witnessed it but took a photo and uploaded it to his Twitter account. He was the first "journalist" on scene and he was the first person to cover the story. It was an incredible day for everyone–all the passengers were saved, the world received first-hand information from a completely unbaised source, and Janis Krums was made a celebrity who appeared on MSNBC, Good Morning, America, and other TV shows.

But not everyone can be a journalist but everyone can be a Twitterer. There is training, education, ethics, practices, that must be mastered before you can start reporting. You have to get the story right before you send it out. There must be fact-checkers and editors. But now, everyone is a reporter and the information that is spread can be misunderstood, skewed, or just flat out wrong. And with the volume of tweets that pour in, no one can be sure about who is correct.

I suggest reading Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. Whether you decide to throw your TV out the window or not, this book makes a good argument about technology in general. It is widely accepted that technology is "neutral" and that it can only be used for unscrupulous purposes when placed in the wrong hands. Mander's book argues that this is not so and I believe that Twitter is another example of how technology isn't benign but that they work against us even when we aren't using them.

Speculating the Future of Publications

I have just read in a recent issue of Time magazine that the Ann Arbor newspaper, Anne Arbor News has closed down and transitioned into an online-only publication. Before Anne Arbor, it was the Rocky Mountain News in Denver which closed after 149 years of business. And I fear that this trend will continue in the years to come. This may sound like a depressing blog but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Currently, the only move a publication can make to sustain itself is to move into a digital format ie online. While it's cheaper and more efficient, it is also tougher to monetize. Some online publications are taking steps to ensure that their writers, editors, and staff members are getting paid. Washingtonpost.com requires an account membership to view most of it's content. Soon, I'm afraid that they will be charging for content. The only reason to be fearful of this idea is that, most of the time, people don't like to pay for things that they normally get for free.

The New York Times has a great little application called The New York Times Reader which is an Adobe Air app. It is a scalable auto-updating app that lets you read The New York Times in a sleek off-line window. You can subscribe to the Reader for $3.75/week.

So some publications are protecting themselves, some are not, and some simply can't. Some are simply too small to compete. And as fewer and fewer publications survive, the World Wide Web will be the only sustainable source of information. It's cheap, easy to access, and anyone can contribute. And therein lies the problem.

The great thing about newspapers and magazines is that they have editors and fact-checkers. Bloggers do not. Bloggers can literally say whatever they want and their blogs can be read by anyone all over the world. This is a dangerous concept.

Having said that, here is my timeline of the next 25 years:

The Approaching Storm: 2010 - 2015
Most of the small market newspapers have shut down or gone to an online-only format. The major papers will survive (New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, a few others) but cling desperately to life. The web however has grown significantly. Nearly everyone is a blogger of some kind either through blogging sites, Twitter, Facebook, or other sites. The volume of information explodes and as a result the reliability of this information wains.

The Dark Age of Information: 2015 - 2025
Nearly all newspapers and publications cease their traditional paper circulation. As the web explodes with content, online publications become lost in the fray. Information, regardless of merit or credibility, is consumed and spread. Few blogs and sites are reliable because no one is being paid to research and fact-check. The quality of information and content also plummets. In this time, all web content mirrors YouTube content of today. In other words, it's 99% crap. Not only is this the Dark Age of Information but it is also the Dark Age of Business and Innovation. As the credibility of information is threatened in the way that it is, global infrastructures become weakened and innovation comes to a screeching halt.

The Quiet Revolution: 2025 - 2030
An awakening has begun–a quiet revolution. The world is tired of unreliable information and socioeconomic stagnation. They want rich content, not fluffy or bogus stories and information. Bloggers become responsible in their posts. They do research and begin fact-checking. They don't update their blog or micro-blog or Facebook or whatever every hour. They wait for something relevent to happen. They start writing about relevent topics. As a result, web traffic and content slowly begins to plateau and then decline.

The Return of the Editor: 2030 - 2035
A new system is born out of the catastrophe that was the end of modern publications. I have no idea what this will look like–perhaps a new technology is born where documents can be downloaded onto an ultra-thin paper-like material. Perhaps information can be directly downloaded into an individual's brain. Perhaps things just stay on the web, if it still exists. Whatever the system is, one thing has definitely changed: People are being paid to write, fact-check, and edit content. And as a result, information is more reliable and the world works more efficiently. Individuals realize that not everyone should be spreading information because not everyone is capable of editing and fact-checking.

How editors and writers get paid is another question. The idea of paying for information is nothing new but it sort of is. I can go on Google and get millions of pages of information for free. Probably about .o1% of it is relevant and reliable. But I've never had to pay for that information. Perhaps in the future, I will. People need to realize that information is as important as the food we eat, which we are willing to pay for. You wouldn't eat spoiled food just because it is free. The same goes for information. In the end, you're not simply paying for information–you're paying for credibility, reliability, and an earnestness toward truth.

Having said all of that, I am fact-checking right now. Everything seems okay. I just want to add a disclaimer to this so I don't seem hypocritical. This is clearly speculation. I have no idea if anything is going to come to fruition. I hope it doesn't. But I just wanted to illustrate a possibility. If you don't want this to happen, all I can recommend is that you purchase a newspaper subscription and appreciate the importance of credible and reliable information.

-Edited by Jenna Boswell