I believe it's Greek for "jumping on the bandwagon". Most of my friends have started a blog at one point. The majority were just a collection of Facebook statuses, abandoned about a month after they started it, not really your best effort at writing, provided there's spell check for everything and no one even bothers to use it ... there is a difference between "then" and "than". With so many ways to broadcast your most interesting thoughts (like "loving the weather" and it's a lie, because the weather sucks by the way) and blogs being the ones that require the most work, they are the first tool to be left unsharpened in the long lost shed of free online resources. But then, 140 characters of fun exploded into the scene, like the "wassaaaah" line from Scary Movie. And all of a sudden it all became about rants of a completely new language filled with # and RT's and @ signs ... to be honest my twitter feed looks like an error screen on my DOS-based computer after playing too much Prince of Persia, copied from a 3.5in floppy disk ... how time flies. Being unable to abbreviate and refusing to use text-like or IM-like jargon like "jk" or "rotfwmhomflol" (Five bucks if you can figure this one out), I have found that blogging has been the best kept secret to find plain'ol good writing.
Obama refers to the last 10 years as the "Lost Generation", not because of the hit series I've never watched, but because we didn't really create anything and logged millions of hours browsing Chelsea's Spring Break album. Not to get political, but his comment has some validity. I have seen my friends and classmates' vocabulary, writing skills and ability to think out complete sentences being flushed down the toilet faster than condemning evidence during a cop raid. The truth is that while listening to my friends, I have realized that most do have an extensive vocabulary and are able to maintain hour-long conversations completely avoiding the most common 2 topics; women and booze. But when put it in writing, the limitations of thinking inside the 140-character box really hinders their ability to create something pure, or awesome, or with some sort of writing structure.
What interests me is that the new generation of rising stars on the silver screen, like Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, my all-time favorite Dakota Fanning and the likes of it, play characters who are fantastic word smiths. Characters whom we quote on their brilliant word-choices and new ways of eloquently say something so mundane, that it becomes an instant pop culture phrase like "... I just went from six to midnight". Are the actors just as brilliant and eloquent as their temporary roles? I like to think so. I like to think that these kids born when I was already old enough to proctor detention, are able to leap-frog our generation and are able to really master the tools available to them to make a statement. To make a statement that written language goes far beyond a Facebook status, and to encourage others to think on their own and to share those thoughts. Post relevant thoughts to challenge every new generation to do more, to be better. I wouldn't want a politician to be elected in the future, based on how many that's-what-she-said lines he can attach to his opponent's statements.
Obama refers to the last 10 years as the "Lost Generation", not because of the hit series I've never watched, but because we didn't really create anything and logged millions of hours browsing Chelsea's Spring Break album. Not to get political, but his comment has some validity. I have seen my friends and classmates' vocabulary, writing skills and ability to think out complete sentences being flushed down the toilet faster than condemning evidence during a cop raid. The truth is that while listening to my friends, I have realized that most do have an extensive vocabulary and are able to maintain hour-long conversations completely avoiding the most common 2 topics; women and booze. But when put it in writing, the limitations of thinking inside the 140-character box really hinders their ability to create something pure, or awesome, or with some sort of writing structure.
What interests me is that the new generation of rising stars on the silver screen, like Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, my all-time favorite Dakota Fanning and the likes of it, play characters who are fantastic word smiths. Characters whom we quote on their brilliant word-choices and new ways of eloquently say something so mundane, that it becomes an instant pop culture phrase like "... I just went from six to midnight". Are the actors just as brilliant and eloquent as their temporary roles? I like to think so. I like to think that these kids born when I was already old enough to proctor detention, are able to leap-frog our generation and are able to really master the tools available to them to make a statement. To make a statement that written language goes far beyond a Facebook status, and to encourage others to think on their own and to share those thoughts. Post relevant thoughts to challenge every new generation to do more, to be better. I wouldn't want a politician to be elected in the future, based on how many that's-what-she-said lines he can attach to his opponent's statements.
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