After reading my mom’s post on shutting down her tumblelog, I can’t help but agree, and it’s time for me to end this.
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To be hit with a personal insult, from a stranger who knows only my blog persona, yet attacks me as a person, is an awful feeling.
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But going forward, Jakob Lodwick, the person, is withdrawing from the public web. You will see the results of my efforts through Normative and other companies. I just cannot deal with these animals any longer.
the only thing i have to say about this is that you can’t assume identity or opinions on the internet are coming from, or are aimed at, people. i mean, i disagree on a person level with a lot of things i see online, but i try to attack points of view, not people. at the same time, i think this happens when fame dynamics come into play online. this stuff is supposed to be a 2-way street, but really once the attention coming in is too great to be matched going out, who you are becomes irrelevant to those watching.
these people only know Lodwick’s blog persona, and it rubs them the wrong way, so they overreact in their own persona. is it kind? of course not. but is it actually aimed at real world Jakob Lodwick? likely not, 95% of the crap aimed at him (low estimate) comes from people who know him through either his blog, or Gawker.
i never have to deal with this personally, as i’m massively anonymous, but i have unpopular opinions, as well. i might get irrationally irritated at what i perceive as racism in the digg comment threads, or ignorance from other bloggers, or downright stupidity, but i try to remember - i’m not talking to or about this person. i’m talking to or about my interpretation of their projected persona.
the one thing i will say, is that fame dynamics are why Lodwick is taking so much shit, but he also uses them and at least in his blog persona, revels in them. the first release from normative, and i would wager the next few to come, are going to be notable as much for who runs the company as they will for the music. He’s taken to only offering link traffic (ie, internet fame runoff) to those he likes or deems ‘worthy’, using screenshots, etc, to make direct links/reblogs from his tumblr artificially increase in value. Not too far in the past, he attempted to ‘devalue’ someone’s brand by naming his moustache after her - he decided against that later on, but all of these things are based entirely on the large amount of attention he gets.
this attention is obviously valuable to his online persona, and i would wager valuable to his various business ventures.
so i have to wonder, in an attention economy, is it really wise to step away from such a notable source of eyes and ears because people are being mean? or would you kinda accept that with being notable comes a river of shit that is of dubious rationale, sometimes?
i don’t know, i haven’t been there. i’m actually pretty happy with my relative anonymity. to me, social media works best on a ‘famous to your friends’ basis.