This is the Lonely Web. It lives in the murky space between the mainstream and the deep webs. The content is public and indexed by search engines, but broadcast to a tiny audience, algorithmically filtered out, and/or difficult to find using traditional search techniques.
(click here for article)
a study in 2009, according to the aforementioned article, found that 53% of all you-tube videos have less than 500 views each. i'd venture to guess that over 50% of that 53% have less than a dozen views. we can't all be "charlie bit my finger". in fact, being "charlie bit my finger" is much more the exception than the rule.
most of us are out here just humming to ourselves.
i'm ambivalent about this reality. on the one hand, popularity sounds like fun, but on the other hand, it's a freaking lot of pressure. i mean, you three (or... two?) will forgive me for not posting for a few weeks, but can you imagine not hearing from "slate" or "onion" or "huffington post" for a few weeks? no, you cannot.
a few more followers might be flattering, but too many and anonymity is blown by some gumbo-brain who can't live without knowing who you are.
why have opinions if no one is listening? but soon as someone is listening, your opinions start an attention-sucking row, and pretty soon you're up all night defending yourself to strangers.
posting in the lonely web is like living in whoville. but were the whovians better off after horton heard them? i mean, damn, those monkeys and kangaroos just about did them in. who needs to be trampled by kangaroos??
in the end, it is what it is. we aren't all famous nor can we be, and in fact on the internet just as in life, there are many levels -- famous to well-known and right on down to whovian. i might choose to be on a bottom rung of well-known, rather than whovian, but hell, that's work. might as well just hum to myself here in whoville, watching the clouds go by.
i hereby formally invite joe veix, a writer and artist based in oakland, CA, and writer of the quoted article, to come by here for a look-see.
HI JOE!! #joeveix #veix #lonelyweb
caveat: no matter how lonely it seems out here, getting completely crazy remains a risk. i mean, your words or videos or photos or whatever you are posting is on the public internet, after all. just because you're slapping your shit up on a wall in the middle of the desert doesn't mean some nomad won't come along and gawk at it.
hi jeffer!
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