The Revolution Will Not Happen on MySpace
I used to have a blog, although in those days it was called a diary.
It existed only online, and although I didn’t keep up with it all the time
it was notorious. Really.
I described it as 'extreme publicity',
and decided to tell the truth, and not edit my life like
on
publicity junkets, where your life is reduced to four anecdotes
and maybe two good jokes.
When I eventually shut it down, when my stalker kept ringing me
from Japan, even after he'd been deported
(and can I just say about that: I didn't want to
get someone deported, and I didn’t even know he was here
illegally – but he knew, and probably therefore should
have stopped sending me insane messages when I said I was
going to the police)
I felt better. It occurred to me that being a writer means
creating something in narrative or poetry
not making lists of likes and dislikes in binary.
And writing is not actually about 'expressing yourself', but in letting something be
expressed through you.
MySpace
is
a
disgrace.
Something should be done about it. I could ignore it but nowadays
writers are supposed to blog.
To blog:
I blog
You blag
He/she blegs
We blug
And people think they know each other.
Has anyone ever thought about how easy it is for you to simply be switched off?
Here's my tip for future revolutionaries:
Make friends with people in your street
or at least your immediate vicinity.
Exchange mobile numbers, but understand that you can’t have
a revolution by text message. You can’t rely on the
networks of the enemy to convey your messages…
Think about it.
(And I know that 'networks of the enemy' sounds stupid,
and when you’re sitting on your sofa watching Sex and the
City there are no networks and there is no enemy…
But just think how comfortable people were in 1933.)
A couple of years ago I wrote a 500 page novel about consumerism
and viral marketing and the McDonaldsisation of identity.
But my new novel is coming out soon and I’m supposed to be
'available to blog '. What does that mean?
I know my publishers mean well, but
do I really have to sculpt myself into a banal product
that only exists on someone else’s screen?
Or infect them like flu…
It’s like high school in 2d. 'I have 141 friends!'
actually, I don’t have any.
And do I have to list the bands I like, and the authors I like;
barcode myself?
And when I'm dead, or in hiding.
Don’t make a MySpace profile on my behalf.
Don’t pretend I 'm still alive. Or blog about my death.
They did that to Raymond Carver. I can 't believe it.
Did you know that Mark Z Danielewski has 2018 friends? That's more than
Osama bin Laden.
In a power cut, what are you? Who are you in the dark?
And did no one remember to buy candles?
