February, 2006
25 posts under this date.
In which to much rejoicing of the masses, the one true catch-metaphor for blogs is finally unveiled.
Last time a friend asked me what a blog was, I blabbered and gesticulated madly for a long while, only to cap it off, desperate, with the safe “they’re online diaries”. As it often happens, I ended up saying exactly the opposite of what I believe. I don’t think blogs are mere online diaries. Those are a sub-genre, to be sure, but blogs are much more, and it is misleading, stifling, and plain false, to have that as their only metaphor (isn’t it overstretching to call this very blog post you’re now reading a journal entry?).
So that no one finds himself forced to betray his better knowledge again, I’ve tried to find a metaphor that outcharms the prevailing one—one that’s true and yet as simple and catchy. I think I’ve found it: Blogs are open letters.
Blogs are open letters. Compilations of written communications addressed to whoever may want to read them1. The title of a blog post, the letter, is in fact its address, crafted to route the epistle to its many recipients (though of course Google, the post master, uses far more clever ways to deliver it). A good dose of current happenings goes in these letters, of course, but there’s much, much else: recommendations, reviews, analysis, reflections, advice, criticism, self-promotion, narrative, essays, rants, howtos, explanations, interpretations, confessions, j’accuses, press releases, calumnies, lies, exaggerations, gossip, sobs—anything that would go on a letter.
So now you know. Blogs are open letters. Spread the word (or challenge it in the comments).
Movie Director: How was it?
Major Motoko Kusanagi: I certainly wouldn’t say it was a bad movie.
But no matter what kind of entertainment it is… it should be temporary. With no beginning or ending, the audience is bewitched into not letting go of a movie like this.
I don’t think there’s anything wonderful about that. In fact, it’s rather harmful.
Director: Oh, harsh. You’re trying to say that we should return to reality, right?
Major: That’s right.
Director: There are people in this audience who have unhappy things waiting for them if they return. If you take away the audience’s dreams, will you also take on their responsibilities?
Major: No, I won’t. Dreams only have meaning because we struggle in the waking world. Just projecting yourself into other people’s dreams is the same as being dead.
Director: A realist, eh?
Major: If you call someone who runs away from reality a romantic.
Director: Such a strong girl. Call me when you’ve made your beliefs reality. We’ll come out of this theater when that time comes.
I don’t think it needs much context but this conversation takes place inside some sort of virtual reality where dozens of people are voluntary trapped watching an endless film. A favorite quote of mine. I had to transcribe it myself because it’s nowhere to be found around the web. Weird, that.
Bob represents the domestication of the personal computer, in the pejorative sense of the word, turning the miraculous shape-shifting capacities of these machines into a dulled repetition of everyday, household reality.
The real magic of graphic computers derives from the fact that they’re not tied to the old, analog world of objects. They can mimic much of that world of course, but they’re also capable of adopting new identities and performing new tasks that have no real-world equivalent whatsoever. People who get hooked on computers get hooked for this reason. They don’t become high-tech junkies because their machines remind them of their Rolodexes; they’re junkies because their machines do things they never thought possible. Interface design should reflect this newness, this range of possibility.
Amen.
Good ole Tetris is a wonderful example of those possibilities, of that unreality, and so is Photoshop. For a more recent, fascinating example look no further than the Namekuji game (but be warned, by clicking this link you therewith relinquish the next couple of hours).
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