this could have been like ten tweets or one blog post so here's to economy i guess

May 16, 2012

this could have been like ten tweets or one blog post so here’s to economy i guess

nobody asked my opinion on this (haha, whatever—blogs!!) but i just had to get this off my chest because a lot of people were hating on TED talks today and i started feeling that protective sort of feeling you get when a thing you’ve hated on so tirelessly for so long ends up on the receiving end of a lot more widespread hate and it’s like seeing your little hate baby all grown up and leaving the nest and that’s weird.

but anyway TED talks are stupid for the same reason the curator’s code is stupid: mutual admiration societies for people who think mere thinking—about anything at all, really!—oughtta get a gold star.

as if the the daily feeding at the trough of ‘infotainment’ (ugh, that word) has so lowered the bar of what passes for baseline intellectual cognition that the mere intention one displays by googling, idk, “[jacques derrida/walter benjamin/some other bro i read in my intro to crit class] and the effect of [something relevant to the latest episode of ‘mad men’]” is the new normal of intellectual curiosity.

but intellect when donned as a twee affectation leads generally only to puerility (or a TED laminate, i guess?). oh you spent the last 5 minutes reading a wired article instead of playing farmville? mazel tov, kiddo, here, have a 20 minute panel to tell us all about the emancipatory implications of helvetica neue at a conference that establishes exclusivity not with intellectual rigor but with a $7,500 ticket price.

anyway, moral of the story, if you ever catch me looking for a pat on the back because HEY YOU GUYS LOOK I JUST USED MY BRAIN please just push me out a fucking window thanks.

8:18pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZpI0byLcK-F5

(Notes: 59)

Filed under: LANGRY