An unexpected emergence.

PROLOGUE: The post below was written Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014 - a little more than a week ago. I hesitated to post it because I got bogged down in uncertainty about whether or not it would provide value for readers. But I will leave that determination up to you.
_______________________

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.

Over the past month, my review of Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" has racked up 534 views, bringing its total views to 877, and causing it to displace "Internet journalism and the Black Church's $420 billion" as the second-most-read post on this blog.

I have no idea how or why this has happened. I have done nothing to promote that post. What is more remarkable is that I can't tell that anyone else is promoting it either. Googling my name and the film's title shows no evidence of anybody recommending the post or referring to it.

I wish I knew what was going on, so that I might also know whether and how I could replicate it.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

*****************
But then, I have never really promoted this blog. I've never really promoted any of my work. I have placed it before the public, but I have not consciously and conscientiously sought the public's attention for it.

Which, put that way, seems dumb.

There is too much noise in the world to assume that my work will magically generate the attention that I would like for it to receive, on its own. And I do believe that at least some of my work deserves more attention than it gets.

I work hard at creating stuff. When I don't work just as hard to promote it, I'm insulting my own work. 

That's not just dumb. That's extremely stupid.

"Let people find it" may be arrogance, or modesty, or insecurity. But in any case, it is stupidity. And it cheats the world. No one will benefit from what they don't know about. Work that the world does not know about will not change the world.

If word of mouth really is the most powerful means of promotion, then let my mouth be first.

To quote Walt Whitman (I think), "If you done it, it ain't bragging."

******************
So, this is what I have done: I have blogged here for 12 years, since July 22, 2002.

I know that only because I just looked it up. I didn't realize it had been that long. And saying that I have done it for 12 years is definitely not bragging, because...(deep breath) doing something for a long time is not the same as doing it well. It is possible to do something poorly for a long time. Especially if you don't care enough about it to do the work needed to do it better.

Ouch.

The question, "What have I done to make this blog better?" immediately yields to the question, "What *can* I do to make this blog better?" And then, "What constitutes 'better'? What are the criteria?"

One criterion is "reaching more people." I can pretend as much as I want about not caring how many people read this, but that's dumb pretending. I write in hopes of being read, and of making a difference for my readers. The more difference I make, the better. The more people I make a difference for, the better. The more people who read, the better.
____________________

EPILOGUE: On second thought, "reaching more people" is a result, not a metric for the quality of the product. AND, it's not even a result of the quality of the product - at least, not of that alone. It is at least as much a result of the effectiveness of the promotion of the product as it is of the quality of the product itself.

One well-established criterion for quality blogging is frequency of posts - even if those posts are just a paragraph, or two or three. I need to learn that. So, dear reader, expect more.

How To Become Dumber In 20 Minutes Or Less

I have spent my entire life trying to become smarter. Today, I have learned definitively that not only can one become dumber, one can do so in 20 minutes!

Imagine the possibilities! What could you do if you were dumber? You could delay productive activity indefinitely while struggling to make sense of an infinite number of matters, NONE OF WHICH INVOLVE YOU.

By what marvelous magic, what wonderful wizardry, might this scarcely-imaginable state be attained, you ask?

The answer, my friends, is so simple that it will amaze you, and yet, so profound that I truly ought to charge a princely sum for sharing it.

You can become dumber simply by attending to Internet journalism.

I can hear your likely first response: "Pshaw! What does this fellow mean? How can journalism delivered via the Internet make people dumber? Is not the very enterprise of journalism devoted to making people smarter? And is not the Internet the greatest system for the dissemination of information in the history of the world? Pshaw and fiddlesticks!!"

Ah, but you misunderstand. When I say "Internet journalism," I do not mean journalism delivered via the Internet; I mean journalism made possible by the Internet, journalism that could not exist without the Internet, a type of journalism that cries out for its own name, so distinct is it from anything that has gone before.

And Internet journalism made me dumber today. Here is how it happened.

A Facebook friend posted a link to an article from Gawker, with the headline, "Django Unchained Actress Accosted by LAPD After Kissing White Husband." Please check it out - it's short.

I read it, and found it exasperatingly incomplete. It quotes an LAPD email:  "...a citizen made a 911 call complaining that a male and female were 'involved in indecent exposure inside a Silver Mercedes with the vehicle door open.' The responding sergeant and police officers believed Danièle Watts and Brian James Lucas fit their description..." But it doesn't say whether Watts and Lucas were in fact the subjects of the original complaint.

Were they in a silver Mercedes? Were they doing more than kissing? Gawker doesn't say. Neither does the account by Variety which Gawker uses as source material. (A primary characteristic of Internet jounalism, vs. journalism delivered via the Internet, is that it requires no actual reporting: it thrives on merely citing other media outlets, without caring those outlets' trustworthiness.) 

I googled Watts' name and saw that a long list of media had stories about the incident. I chose to read the Washington Post's because I trusted the Post most.

After reading it, I trust the Post less. (Take a look, it's short)

First, because WaPo early refers to Lucas, not as Watts' husband, but as her "partner." If that is accurate, then Gawker's headline - the headline, for crying out loud - is inaccurate. On the other hand, if Gawker got it wrong, then WaPo got it wrong. The net effect was that the two articles together left me confused me about a basic fact of the story.

Second, because of this:

Lucas told TMZ that the couple was “making out in a parked car” outside CBS television studios, where Watts had just had a meeting. 

...which presented me with two problems - a) the very phenomenon of The Washington Post citing TMZ, and b) the phrase "making out," which in my mind means more than the kissing stated in Gawker's HEADLINE. (Watts' FB post says "showing affection," which could mean anything.).

So I went to the TMZ story (go ahead, it's short), and the first thing I saw was that the headline refers to a "white BF." Yep, in TMZ, Lucas is neither Watts' husband nor partner, he's her boyfriend.

Then, while it says that the couple were making out, it does not say that Lucas told them that. So how did WaPo reach that conclusion?

And it was after I had spent some 20 minutes reading three articles that I realized I had become dumber.

Before reading them, I merely didn't know that either Watts or Lucas existed (I saw "Django Unchained," but did not pay enough attention to the credit to notice Watts' name). Now I don't know whether Lucas is Watts' husband, partner or boyfriend. I don't know whether or not they were in a silver Mercedes. I don't know whether they were merely kissing or making out. I don't know whether or not they were in fact the subjects of the 911 call. I read three articles, and do not know the basic facts of the story that they are all about.

And that, friends, is the absolute miracle of Internet journalism.

But wait, there's more! More articles, that is, as this story heads into its sixth day in the 24-hour news cycle:

I'm not reading any of them. I do not need to become one whit dumber.