Stream of Consciousness writing is an interesting thing. Sometimes, it’s interesting to see how someone thinks, or how they make connections, and other times, it’s horrific to see where people go when they deign to think. More often than not, it’s an excuse some writers use for explaining why they have textual diarrhea (including bloggers, which is part of the appeal, oddly enough), rather than presenting a tighter narrative or analytical structure. (I’m certainly not immune to this, but then, blogging isn’t writing a term paper, either.) It’s especially interesting to see the journey from point A to point B, since the two may not initially seem connected, but following the links in the chain show how even disparate things can be connected with enough meandering.
This, of course, is the appeal of the “Six Degrees of Separation” theory and the casual sport of namedropping. For some reason, people want to feel connected and important, and if they can prove even an incidental link to someone else who is more important, it seems like a little thunder can be stolen, or at least echoed. Of course, in a nepotistic society where who you know is more important than what you know, this isn’t a great surprise. It’s still potentially dangerous, shallow and stupid, but not surprising.
It’s also why people follow the herd in something like American Idol or political campaigns; people like to feel that they “picked the winner”, which somehow makes them feel more important, since their choices were apparently validated by their peers, imagined or otherwise. (Of course, objectivity is thrown out the window, but facts are so inconvenient.) Call it the bandwagon effect, the halo effect (or the Halo effect), or social flocking, whatever, people tend to like to find those links that make them feel important. (What else is Facebook, after all? Ixobelle noted, rightly, that it’s sort of a game, complete with a very visible score and addictive mechanics.)
This is, of course, a rumination on the notion of internet hyperlinks, and the way that they make research considerably different from the days of card catalogs. Casually dropping a hyperlink into a blog post can give those so inclined the ability to dig deeper down the rabbit hole of any particular topic. Links lead to other links, and pretty soon, you can find that you’ve burned hours just following whims and interesting tangents. (The tvtropes.org website is a great launching pad for just this sort of tangential ADHD research.)
Blogrolls can expand exponentially as a result of this sort of “browsing”. A sort of “hive mind” can form, where ideas echo around within social circles, everyone adding to the great ball of wax that a simple idea spawns. Sometimes that winds up polishing the discussion into a pearl, sometimes it just degrades into Gordian Knot, but it’s usually interesting either way.
Still… I’ve got to admit, I miss the intellectual rigors of a University and term papers. I like it when things are painstakingly researched and analyzed as objectively as possible. I ramble rather extensively about gibberish here on the blog, but as my itch to create rather than pontificate has increased, so has my desire for data, rather than opinions. Extensive link browsing winds up creating a lot of mental cruft when I’m looking for hard data and incisive insight.
Short story long, I was all geared up to provide another handful of links for public consumption, but took a moment to think about it. Do I really want to contribute to the static? Not as much as I used to. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, definitely… but how valuable are these little collections I come up with? I’m a bit ambivalent about them.
So… back to the drawing board. Literally. I need to create, not just… graze. I love data, and I soak it up like a sponge. I’m just a bit oversaturated, and need to clear the system. One way I do that is by drawing.
I’m involved in illustrating a children’s storybook at present, so I’ll be busy with that for a while. It’s not the Steampunk BattleTech art that I’ve really been itching to create, but it will be a great diversion, and a way to stretch my art muscles. Who knows, I might even dig into art creation a bit in this, my narrative dumping ground.
Back in a bit.
Maybe you could pop a little steam and clockwork powered robot into the corner of another illustration…
Hope you’ll display some of those illustrations when you’re able to without breaking whatever copyright may be involved!
Linking adds value to the page you link to. If the page was useful to you, it’s a nice way to ‘tip’ the people responsible.
So while you can look at it as adding to the cruft factor, there’s a real value in it, and…people who read your blog aren’t forced to follow the links. But you might end up helping someone to find just the bit of data they need.
Just another way to look at it.
True enough, Pete. Maybe I’ll just have to be a bit more selective with my internal filters. *shrug*
I sure hope I’ll be able to show them, Ysh. I plan on it, and the contract isn’t finalized yet, so I’ll mention it.
Zoso… that’s brilliant. *plots visual Easter Eggs throughout the book*
I wrote about this not long ago where a blogger said that all blogging was a lower form of writing because it always consisted of posting links, how-tos, and collections of ideas instead of a formed, cohesive, character-driven narrative.
I called bullcrap on it, but then again, my blog has only done one such list and it was about Audiobooks I love.
I much prefer to read well thought out essays in blogs rather than another list of the best/worst of whatever the FotM is.
Good for you for helping the blogosphere move on to something it needs badly.
Heh, I’m only a revolutionary when it comes to the game industry, Beej. When it comes to blogging, I just want to clean up my personal signal to noise ratio. I’ve realized that many of the links I put up are just bookmarks that I intend to revisit (but often don’t), and my blog stat tracker shows me that very few of them get other people visiting them.
The “proof in the pudding” suggests that while I usually find something pithy or interesting to say about links I float out there, and I even usually manage to tie them into the overall game design tapestry I’m weaving, the bulk of the links I put up just aren’t all that useful.
I’ll definitely post links to credit people who kickstart things I want to talk about, and when there’s something I think is *really* useful. It’s just that looking at the results of what I’ve done so far, it’s definitely the essays and walls of text that wind up being more useful around here, or at least as useful as I get. *shrug*
I link a lot because I’m used to providing references in academic training. It’s kinda like proving that your opinion is valid because someone else agrees. It’s classic writing – you draw upon an idea, find similar ones which prove your point, relate to them and then come to a unique and new conculsion.
Another way of looking at it is that we need things to recognised in order for importance to be bestowed on them. If no one acknowledged anyone else, would we place any importance on anything anyone says?
Spitfire, I’m very familiar with the notion of “quoting sources”, having written more than my share of papers. My point is that all too often, these sort of “blog quotation feedback loops” are more about opinion rather than study. Hence my call for more intellectual rigor, and why I intend to be a bit more careful with links.
As it happens, several of my links *are* to more rigorous studies and/or presentations, but those are among the links that don’t get visited.
So I’ll turn your question on its ear: If we are quoting sources that offer more than opinion, why are the opinions given more weight?
(Which is to say you’re right, but it’s not quite what I was getting at, with my data gathering on the back end showing evidence of some unfortunate trends.)
I agree with you in essence. I’ve started posting roughly once a week, and I like to think the things I post (and have posted in the past) are more than just textual fluff. I find my posts help me organize my thoughts a lot, and I hope they’re helpful to others. I used to worry about posting “enough”, and I think that’s a dangerous trap to fall into, because it makes you want to post “to keep people interested”.
But, I agree. I think that a bit more thought should be put into these things. As much fun as opinion and gossip can be, there should also be thoughtful consideration. But, in the age of Twitter and “tl;dr” it’s sometimes hard to get a lengthy point across.
That said, I hope you still put a bit of effort into here. I enjoy your perspectives, Tesh. So, don’t abandon this venue completely. Just post once a week or so like I do.
Gordon, that’s probably my aversion to it. I link when it’s appropriate, but having to do so for so long academically has made me really bitter about the fact that my ideas seem to hold no professional weight without others’ verification. That’s why most of my academic papers are close readings of a text rather than research projects.
Remember, also, that we’re passing around ideas about game design and gaming in general, which are barely scientific endeavors at this point. The room for fact is not particularly large and the ivory towers are still under construction. Don’t let your desire for the ever-so-hard-to-obtain objectivity prevent you from writing about ideas that interest you.
That there aren’t many game design ivory towers suggests to me that there’s more reason to approach things a bit more rigorously.
I’ll definitely write about things that interest me, but I’ve already written most of what I have to say about MMOs. Even commenting on other sites tends to be me repeating myself… and it gets a wee bit tiresome. I can bloviate about things easily; writing comes very easily to me. I just get tired of repeating myself without any good reason to, and what creative energy I’ve bent to the task of brainstorming new MMO design ideas is currently diverted to other projects. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I can only critique for so long without feeling the itch to create.
That said, yes, if something new comes up, I’ll mention it, and cite references as appropriate.
Thanks for stopping by, evizaer. Your site is well worth perusing. I’ve added both you and Beej to my roll recently, and I’m glad to have done so.