thoughts while pooing: i'll be honest, when this whole social networking/blogging thing exploded I was skeptical. i thought, wait a minute..who the heck wants to read about mundane things in each others' life? who the heck is interested in MY thoughts about MY day in MY life?! what credibility do i -- and others who write and share opinions online -- have that would, first, ATTRACT readers and, second, RETAIN them and, at best, finally, ENTERTAIN them?! My thoughts and theories spiraled out in many directions from this notion and its implications.

then, while pooing, i was thinking of how utterly predictable, homogenized, thoughtless, irrelevant and, in my never-humble opinion, downright misleading and insulting MEDIA and NEWS and CURRENT EVENTS are today. Perhaps it's because a large majority of consumable MEDIA is controlled by a very few sources (and all that's implied there) that there seems to be a steady stream of, really, information that is useless to our everyday lives. sharp looking men and women with columbia university journalism degrees telling me that i need to inject a foreign substance in my body - aka swine flu "vaccine" - or else face fear of being quarantined should i sneeze one too many times doesn't hold much credibility when the following "news" segment features those same empty suits reporting to me what color underwear paris hilton wore last night. "news" in the form of interviews, clips, segments, etc. are delivered to us in 90 second to 3 minute bits - at best - and still leave us asking questions or wondering, so what?

that's where, in my "revelation", blogs and social networking tools come in. this is a medium that REAL PEOPLE need and want: REAL SPEAK, REAL TALK ABOUT REAL PEOPLE DOING REAL THINGS THAT MATTER TO THEM...IN (ALMOST-)REAL TIME. someone bitching about their neighbor's dog barking now holds more value to me than, say, the stock market of japan. suzie's kid lost her first tooth makes me smile, not reading how many people were blown apart in iraq. 30 second clips about an anonymous rape victim reinforces what i already know - don't walk home alone at night or go home with strangers. I'm generalizing here, because "news" generalizes, social networking sites and blogs don't (generally speaking, of course).

anybody with me on this one? news may be EXCITING now because of the money and time spent on appealing to our emotional and sensory marketing targets. but news is certainly NOT fulfilling as fulfilling as ADDRESSING our emotional and sensory cravings like we do when interacting - albeit online - with individuals.