Origins of the faux-naif bloggy voice?

this - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/another-thing-to-sort-of-pin-on-david-foster-wallace.html?pagewanted=all

*gazes upon that article for the first time*

i don't mean this wholely critical, and i'm sort of loath to cite examples, b/c they're examples of writing I like if anything. part of why i associate an element of this with ilx is because its a very powerful critical stance to take. you are confronted with some densely constructed argument about some rock thing or why certain music is not good, or the nature of aesthetics more broadly, etc. and answer "but britney is great! everybody loves to dance to toxic!" and that's very hard to respond to.

there's a structure and a framing to how its used now, especially in regards to broader political/social commentary that feels especially new, but deploying exactly that sort of tactic.

on the other hand, i've also found its terribly abrasive to people that aren't used to it. like i sent a column on some economy-related commentary stuff to a friend and he was like 'why is this promoting anti-intellectualism and making fun of people being serious', when of course it was poking fun at pseudo-intellectualism and seriousness as a substitute for thought, etc., but because he was outside of the circle of people who know how to decipher this sort of writing, the layers of meaning just collapsed.

i think that part of this style of writing seems to come from recent college grads from liberal arts colleges who majored in the humanities - feels like that, anyway - idk, coming into your own during the 20s and having had to 'think critically' (what a chestnut!) about ~things~ and ~life~ makes you sort of realize just how insane and received everything we take for granted that we 'know' is - and once you position yourself outside of the morass of received knowledge - not even knowledge, received experience, intuition, worldview - ! and you adopt this tone of "i am just trying to think ~rationally~ about these interesting phenomena. and of course that's really kind of disingenuous, because what is rationality, even, at some subterranean level you are just doing a seinfeld 'what's the DeAL with women's advertising! lobsters! sports!' critique.

i think the crucial move that these writers make is inviting you to just step over and into their shoes, just for a moment, see through my eyes, the eyes of a naif! and let me guide you through the ways that this doesn't make sense. that move of empathy, of bridging a gap between the writer and the reader. which of course is its own horseshit because jeez the thing most unknowable is precisely that which lies outside your own empirical experience and which is only bruised at by reading somebody else's words. your own words, even! solipsism, the noumenal and the phenomenal.

it has rhythmic uses too obv but here's an idea: write a sentence that doesn't need to be artificially enrhythmed

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, March 13, 2013 1:31 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

never

― 乒乓, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 9:46 AM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark

i realize this post would have been much funnier if i had italicized 'never', if only *sigh*

^^^like xp.

he should be judged on more than just heartbreaking. his work has become steadily more sober since that one.

off-topic but yeah, haven't read "heartbreaking" but have read "what is the what" and "hologram for the king" and both are extremely good novels, is this not a consensus view?

as for the original post, i read lots of blogs and don't understand what style is being referred to here though i'm sure i'm familiar with it, i too would like to see examples

good post dayo

keep it going, guys. i want something good to read today. what about klosterman? and murakami? are you guys gonna bring up wes anderson? and the people in the hyundai commercial? is it really an indie twee thing? what about all the question marks? so many? people not willing to commit? always hedging their bets? that's what i see a lot of on the internet? like they are afraid people are gonna make fun of them all the time. well either that or the blustery overconfident all caps thing. but blog-wise, there are too many unfinished thoughts. things not thought through well enough. thinking in public. but not in a good way. but also yeah actual examples would be nice. back up your work, sterl!

ukelele lit

fuck murakami btw

ha i was actually thinking that scott's posts superficially resemble a lot of what's being described here yet in my mind don't line up with the given examples AT ALL. i am at a loss to explain why, really.

I agree w/ dayo literarily itt

because scott is old maybe

can we get some examples of this? this thread is stupid.

scott i dont think of this as that sort of overly-precious or twee internet style of writing which is/was sort of like 90s/early 00s style of being on the internet when the internet wasnt really 'for everyone' the way it is now. the new style is probably in part a reaction to that early style of writing with the overuse of caps and exclamation points and the cartoonish asides and the self-conscious appropriation of urban slang (word!) but its also an attempt to seem certain in the face of overwhelming uncertainty and to seem reasonable in the face of terrifying unreasonableness.

imm what sterlings talking about is like the economists blogs where they use a kind of reflexive plainspokenness to exaggerate the reasonableness of their point. its still blog-conversational but if anything its affect is a seeming affectless idk

well w/ academic stuff there's another thing going on, like if you don't have the plainspokenness you can't even communicate w/ most people out there

There's this voice that blogs have. And it's ironic and chatty, but also, like describes things very simply. And it describes things sort of matter-of-factly, but also with this tone like 'I am describing this thing which is hilarious in this very straightforward way' and also this tone where it describes things that we all know as though we did not all know them. And this works especially well for commentary on culture or politics, because it makes one feel like an innocent, marveling at the crazy people. Or sometimes it is in the voice of an innocent who is too innocent, and mocking their faux-naif shock at something that is not shocking, because maybe we always expect better, but they shouldn't, and their shock is cynical, as opposed to ours, which is a calculated affectation, but meant sincerely.

This voice in blogs -- where does it come from? I feel like we were throwing around the term faux-naif on ilx and sort of developing this tone way early on. But it probably got picked up here from elsewhere. Suck already had it, sometimes, maybe?

So not only where did it come from, but how did it emerge to such prominence? And what other 'default affects' are there in the journo-blog world these days? Like, if someone is developing a style, what are the various models they'd emulate?

― s.clover, Tuesday, March 12, 2013 4:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lol

No one is paying much attention to what I'm saying here, but ultimately I think this is the voice of the dilettante.

Love that NYT essay. These bits especially otm.

"If, even from Wallace, the aw-shucks, I-could-be-wrong-here, I’m-just-a-supersincere-regular-guy-who-happens-to-have-written-a-book-on-infinity approach grates, it is vastly more exasperating in the hands of lesser thinkers."

"So much of what passes for intellectual debate nowadays is obscured behind a veneer of folksiness and sincerity and is characterized by an unwillingness to be pinned down. Where the craving for admiration and approval predominates, intellectual rigor cannot thrive, if it survives at all."

The craving to be perceived as good and honest and flawed only in a likeable way is at the core of this style.

There's something about this tone. That reminds me of voiceovers in commercials and movie trailers. Where the narrator. Speaks phrases and clauses. As though they're complete sentences.

No one is paying much attention to what I'm saying here, but ultimately I think this is the voice of the dilettante.

yeah I think there is something here, like before blogs how many writers would you follow that would be giving you their opinion on britney spears and quantitative easing and that movie they just saw and something that just happened in europe etc

I opened this thread the other day right after reading this blog post, which was linked to on the New Yorker magazine thread, and I thought maybe that was the kind of thing that Sterling meant. But I don't know that it's faux-naif, necessarily -- just kind of that "OMG, let's chat about this, you guys" bloggy voice. (She even uses the abbreviation "w/r/t," which I associate with DFW.)

discourse analysis to thread http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis

also i believe that we are talking about several different things here

* "faux naif bloggy voice" -- no idea what this is
* hedging -- the "well", the hiccups described above are, imo, classic hedges
* using parentheses to add information that is not necessary but that the writer wants to share (sometimes background info, sometimes an aside)
* the chronic informalization/increasingly conversational nature of journalistic writing (this is the one that burns me the most -- writing where the writer's voice is so strong that it overpowers the material being written about)
* whatever else y'all have in your minds that you are categorizing as this "white people lit internet" (?)

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Wednesday, March 13, 2013 8:34 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Again, I think everyone is talking about a constellation of rhetorical devices, so calling it one thing is confusing. It's a toolbox for highly educated people who want to also sound colloquial in order for their audiences to identify with them.

a few examples (which are good and i enjoy, mind you):

http://gawker.com/5989143/booting-a-bookworm-off-the-treadmill-bachelorette-partying-with-your-husbands-mom-and-other-questionable-advice

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/18/why_dont_people_want_to_elect_economists_to_run_stuff/

http://www.theawl.com/2013/03/oz-the-great-and-powerful-stench-of-garbage

like,...

haha xpost i totally picked up w/r/t from dfw.

that said the voice in that post is chatty, but it doesn't have the tone i'm thinking of in particular. it does have a different modern "i'm critiquing this but i'm not advocating burning anything down" sort of tone that another blog subset pioneered, and also feels unlike writing of 15-odd years ago.

which means... what, exactly? that... ? that ....? no, I think...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_%28linguistics%29

"And they act like because they use math, their “science” is more sciencey than sociology or whatever"

http://ct4.pbase.com/o2/02/82302/1/105880271.vtM7cL1c.suicide.gif

i think ultimately this voice expresses exasperation, exhaustion, and hey why not

^^ p much how DFW felt a lot of the time I think?

yeah, it is, like, epidemic-y?

To the extent I have a writerly voice, it's definitely been heavily infected by DFW and Vollman and the median aesthetic of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern

this thread is making me self conscious

m bise ur voice is that of a carmine thai dictator

i certainly mimic internetisms when i'm on ilx. when in rome and all that. but the blogification of just about everything in print is way annoying. or is it? i dunno. lol.

lagoon have u ever considered that u are the origin of the faux-naif bloggy voice

which era vollman and what do you see as the distinguishing characteristics? the more overt tics of his voice are such a high-wire style to pull off, i feel. although his more short, declarative, narrative stuff i think works pretty well and is easy to draw inspiration from...

idk that blog voice is any more annoying than the classic authoritative newsie woosie objectivism, kind just points to that a default voice is always gonna be kinda hacky, great writing will always transcend that but its asking alot for any newspaper piece or blog post to be great

lagoon have u ever considered that u are the origin of the faux-naif bloggy voice

― flopson, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 1:40 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://thelayzmen.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/billy-joel-we-didnt-start-the-7023-1233002619-0.jpg

THIS MY BLØG

the mere fact that you are acutely aware of the origin of your style affectations is a sign that you are using/attempting to use the bloggy voice/a voice.

this reminds me of the proliferation of noise board (bored/borad) language that i could see spreading all over ilx when i first got here. it was weird, but kinda fun to watch from the sidelines. write like that now and you would seem pretty out of it, no?

i also like to define this voice by who doesn't use it and also who aspires to use it and, i dunno, kinda fails.

"And they act like because they use math, their “science” is more sciencey than sociology or whatever"

It should be fairly obvious that Pareene chose this tone because the column was discussing a study by economists of why more economists are not heads of state and he wished to convey the equivalent of a 15 year old saying "well, duh".

noise voice > bloggy voice, rip

t/s: faux-naif bloggy voice v. posting so friggan much and still having no discernible posting style or personality?

"the mere fact that you are acutely aware of the origin of your style affectations is a sign that you are using/attempting to use the bloggy voice/a voice"

not a modern think afaik, and not a negative thing either?

anxiety of influence ahoy.

vollmann is not on the right track i don't think because lacks the practiced distance from the subject, lacks the aw shucks vibe when referencing academic shit, and he's a deeply sincere guy. (buyt in conversation he actually talks like some of the caricatures of bloggers in this thread).
dfw is closer but probably not quite there.

eggers/mcsweeneys i think had a huge influence on this voice.

t/s: faux-naif bloggy voice v. posting so friggan much and still having no discernible posting style or personality?

― 乒乓, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 1:49 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

occurs to me posting so friggin much and still having no discernible posting style or personality is kinda the voice of the tumblr literati tao lin et al, i think there was discussion of that around here somewhere

Did anyone ever cite an actual example of this voice?

(I just read down the thread and couldn't really find one.)

We need to talk about the faux-naif bloggy voice

i feel like The Awl, as much as i loved it, was an early purveyor

Origins of the faux-naif voice? This blogger has Thoughts.