February 7, 2014

"I try to learn interesting things about the world and in this case, the competitiveness about 'I know the Internet better than you do' is pretty profound."

"There's a tremendous arrogance. I found that hilarious — by Gawker standards, it was a resounding compliment." 

The "that," which Susan Orlean found hilarious, was Gawker's opinion that her New Yorker article, "Man and Machine/Playing Games on the Internet" was "generally, much less embarrassing than it could have been."

I've read the New Yorker article. You'll need a subscription to read more than the very beginning. It's about 2 guys who are interested in doing prankish internet things and portraying what they are doing as an art project. Why is The New Yorker facilitating their enterprise? Partly because they've managed to build heavy traffic, but also because Susan Orlean felt like writing about it. So then, why did she feel like writing about it? You can read the interview at the top link and find some answers like:
It doesn't even occur to me to turn on the TV anymore. I'm just sort of screwing around online, either on my phone or my iPad. I can stay very entertained. It's remarkable....

I'm a real app girl — I'm always goofing around with the newest gizmo....

I, for one, welcome our computer overlords. I don't worry about that, I really don't....

10 comments:

John Christopher said...

I know this is an example of "I know the internet better than you," but we've reached the point where only the least funny people among us use the "I, for one, welcome..." reference.

Ann Althouse said...

Consider that this woman is 58 years old, this "app girl."

Anonymous said...

Computer overlords?
Woman, what kind of overlords that can die instantly on your command?

Peter said...

Consider that this woman is 58 years old, this "app girl."

Surely one can have an empty head- dreading boredom, needing constant external stimuli- at any age?

paul a'barge said...

Susan Orlean?

Here you go, click to check her out

Rich beyond belief. And a prodigious man-jaw.

App girl, my arse.

David said...

The internet is better than TV in some ways, not in others.

Yours very truly,

App Boy (age 70)

David said...

Paul, she's not just rich.

She's hubby-rich.

Unknown said...

"She's hubby-rich."

There you go, hypergamy-shaming again.

JorgXMcKie said...

Isn't she part of "the 1%"? Should The New Yorker be encouraging even greater income inequality?

David said...

The set of Internet knowledge is orders of magnitude greater than then subset of any human's knowledge, and the discrepancy is increasing at an accelerating rate. "Polymath" and "Renaissance man" are increasingly meaningless terms.