Origins of the faux-naif bloggy voice?

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

I don't really distinguish between typing on the internet and saying things out loud. typing feels more naturally really.

dfw is think is for sure an antecedent, he was obvs more passionate and rigorous than most of this stuff, but thats only natural

fair enough. but let's remove vollmann from the list, please.

anyways
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=567821

this is the voice i think of when i read sterlsy's original post

<i>I know someone from the internet from Seattle and he likes the novel</i> The Moviegoer <i>by Walker Percy a lot. His name is Matthew. I argued with Matthew on the internet one time. I said</i> The Moviegoer <i>was melodramatic and did melodramatic things in regard to existential despair.</i>

i still think primarily of nabisco

FUCK ....... but just look at that shit

to me nitsubisco is like elegantly brandishing his intellect

^ faux naif bloggy voice

a positive quality of bloggy voice is imho its critique of credentials and experts, its v much expressing the promised internet democratization, anyone can show up and be judged not by their position but by their argument, not that thats how it actually works irl obvs but it works more like that now than it used to

its very american in that sense

just tossing in a 'like': cheating.

nabisco is maybe the missing link between dfw and bloggy voice

elect me dictator of ilx and i promise such gesturing will not be allowed, i will be the sole voice of authority on all things

a positive quality of bloggy voice is imho its critique of credentials and experts, its v much expressing the promised internet democratization, anyone can show up and be judged not by their position but by their argument, not that thats how it actually works irl obvs but it works more like that now than it used to

is the bloggy voice really responsible for the critique of credentials and experts?

also lots of genuine experts go down this route, like paul krugman using lolcatz references or w/e

well i guess you could say its more an expression than the cause

paul krugman is attempting to assimilate by using these tactics -- he's hardly the vanguard of bloggy voice

krugman is an expert but hes also for sure critical of credentialism, i mean hes got to deal w these hacks all day

im sure many actual experts welcome these developments w open arms

well ultimately it comes down to 'you don't need someone else's approval to get something published' which helps experts too, tho hurts them in other ways

paul krugman is attempting to assimilate by using these tactics -- he's hardly the vanguard of bloggy voice

code-switching? ; )

doy