Okay, I apologize ahead of time and give you fair warning that what you’re about to read is something I feel very strongly about and since I’m extremely emotional, this might be painful to read. It might take me some time to get to my point. It also will probably repeat some issues I mentioned in previous posts.
You’ve been warned.
I’ve never considered myself a web person. I’ve been familiar with the web for a very long time and had a web page back when Mosaic was the cool browser. I even did an art project in college about intermingling art and web technology. But until recently, I used the web mostly as a tool to get information. I read newspapers, I looked up movie locations and reviews, I researched stuff, and that was about it.
I can’t remember the first weblog I read. I can’t remember how I discovered most of the sites that are now part of my daily routine. But, somehow, I found a site and started following the links until I discovered a whole new world.
I’m still not a web person. I guess what I mean when I say “web person” is someone whose primary job/interest is the web. I love the web. I love writing my site. I love reading other people’s sites. But I have a job that doesn’t use any web technology. I volunteer at an organization that doesn’t have computers in each room, let alone dial-up access. Most of my friends don’t know HTML and almost none read my site. A few close ones do but many don’t.
The thing is if the web were like the real world, it would be extremely difficult for me to have my own little corner. Imagine walking into a magazine’s office and asking to have your own section. Or an art gallery to have your work displayed. Most of the world is very structured and segregated. There are committees that decide the value of your work. College admissions offices tell you whether you deserve to get in. Publishers decide the future of your book. It doesn’t matter whether you poured your soul into a piece or not, if the woman at the publishing house had a bad morning, your novel will not see the light of day.
The real world is full of rejection. Full of “you’re not good enough”, “you lack the necessary background”, and many other forms of limitations. There are millions of preconceived notions, prescribed patterns you have to fit, roadmaps you have to follow, asses you must kiss, before you’re even given a chance.
But it takes you ten minutes to setup your own web page. This little corner will let you show off your novel, photographs, artwork, or many other incredible talents. The web allows you to bring people together in the most awe-inspiring ways. It allows you to meet someone halfway around the world who shares the same interests and can broaden your mind instantaneously.
Where else can you do that?
Sure I can write my words in a diary and still get them out, but this way I get to share them with the whole world. I put myself out there and I get rewarded. It’s like getting your work displayed, not just in a small gallery, but to the whole world.
Why are criteria and elitism the only harbingers of success?
And what’s so terrible about trying?
Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” And yet, people get stifled so early on. Your lack of talent is recognized and hammered into you at an early age. “You really can’t draw, honey, why don’t you try being a biology major instead?” I remember an anecdote I read in a novel about the author visiting a kindergarten and asking the students who could draw and all the hands shot up. The author then went to a college classroom and asked the same question and very few hands were raised. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we’re taught to stop trying. Since badness is discouraged and we’re bad, we should just give it all up.
And after all this rambling, I’ll come out and say my point. Earlier this week someone made a comment on a metatalk thread that drove me absolutely crazy. It doesn’t matter who as such comments have been made in several places and instances, by many different people. These people think that the web should emulate the elitism of the real world. They feel that your having your own homepage is unacceptable unless it’s perfect. And before you ask, yes, of course, they happen to be the judges of material that qualifies as perfect. They believe letting you have your own web site overpopulates the web with crap.
Aren’t they fucking nice?
The thing is, I totally understand the right to judge something that was submitted to your inspection. If you have a site where you post submissions and someone enters and you don’t like their work, you have every right to turn it down and you don’t even need to give a reason, because it’s your site and you can do whatever you damn please. This is no different than if I were sending my novel to Random House and they refused to publish it. At the end of the day, by accepting your work, they are agreeing to put their name on your work and if they don’t like it, they should have the right not to give you their name. Totally fair.
Not letting people make their own pages, however, is not.
Assuming you should get to choose who’s deserving of having a web page is ridiculous. It’s nothing but pompousness.
The great thing about using the web is that you get to choose the sites you go to. So here’s my little message to the people who feel that the web is getting diluted with crap:
“Surf elsewhere and shut the fuck up.”
Previously? Reflection.
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