A moment ago I came across Kurt Vonnegut on Writing Better over at 43Folders. I read Merlin’s take on the origination of the post. I read Merlin’s tale of breakfast with Mr. Vonnegut. Then, for some reason, I was compelled to follow the link back to Metafilter where Merlin first came across his subject matter.

I’m not terribly familiar with Metafilter. I prefer to let others filter that site even further. If something is really worthy of notice it will bubble to the surface. Do me a favour and read the comments on Condensed: ‘Care, constraint, concise, cut, character, clarity, and charity’. I think it’s safe to say that 90% of those comments have no redeeming value whatsoever. I am unable to determine if the first comment, Nice article. Who is this Vonnegut guy? is an attempt at humour or just one more person failed by public schooling.

Tipping Point

I’m not sure what it was about the Metafilter post that tipped me over the edge. Maybe it was my pretentious, snotty lizard brain screaming, “These people have no right to discuss Vonnegut!” I don’t know the answer but examples of useless (there is no other way to describe it) commentary are strewn all over the internet now. Digg and YouTube are prime examples of Ooh a text field! What inane fucking babble can I insert into the world conversation?

Your special club

There was a time when you might have thought, “I know the best blogs to find smart, focused conversation on the net.” So, you would subscribe to the RSS feeds of these clever sites and revel in the tight community that commented there. You would link to that site and that site would occasionally link back to you. The people that commented there would comment on your site and the dozens of other sites you visited regularly. These were your people, your kind of people.

And then the rabble came.

Rather than this precious forum being stock full of insight and commentary it quickly became more likely that you’d see a thirty page exchange of dick jokes. We all love a good dick joke but there’s a time and a place and that place was no longer for you.

Twitter, the saviour

Twitter changes all of that. It’s a ridiculous name, Twitter. Also, for some time, people were hard pressed to see what the point of Twitter was. I’ve only just realised that Twitter is how we will keep conversation on the internet going. Rather than seeking out a blog or forum to have those great conversations of old we can now seek out just the guests we want at the conversation.