Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns.

Most of you know I'm a commie pinko liberal chardonnay swilling arugula chomping egghead elitist feminist. That said, I don't agree with all the molly coddling going on these days where points don't matter and we're all winners and everyone gets a trophy for being mediocre and attendance counts for 90% of your grade. Just showing up doesn't cut it.

In the high school of the blog world, Jess is one of the kids sitting in the back row, nodding off during lectures and drawing pictures of boobs. He shows up for class, but makes no effort. He doesn't do homework and scribbles verbal diarrhea on his pop quizzes. And he's not even providing a useful cultural service, like fuck up or class clown or skank or frighteningly scary dude with dead eyes and a collection of serial killer memorabilia.

The template is completely devoid of personality, with baby poop green and short bus yellow accents. The little overeater fat guy in the banner is cute and appropriate, but the rest of the design is bland with text that is entirely too small. I will say that at the very least it's not cluttered. Yet. But the blog is only a couple of months old, so give it time. And as for the name of the blog, Jess, does your problem have a life? Or is life your problem? The apostrophe usage is utterly confusing.

Speaking of syntax errors, this blog is an editor's nightmare, thus it is my nightmare. It's full of random capitalizations, run on sentences (and not the cute kind, like mine), spelling atrocities, and a complete disregard for the differences between your and you're. I am itching to take a red pen to your blog and mark that shit up.

Look, Jess is a nice guy. Seriously. He's a loving son and fiance. His family and friends mean a lot to him. And I gotta give it up to him for losing over 100 lbs. He seems like a genuinely good person. But there's nothing here. He posts frequently enough, but there's no personality, no connection, no insight, and ultimately, I'm sorry to say, no talent for writing. You don't have to be a great writer, or even a good writer, to blog. But if you're not, you better have something to say, even if you can't say it well. You better have a story to tell or a life full of train wrecks or a unique voice or a personality that transcends grammatical snafus or a big dick to take pictures of, because otherwise you're just there, taking up space and wasting time.

Apparently, Jess has gone this route before with us and come out with a shiny new "I fucking love you." I don't know what he did then to garner such an award, but now he's walking away with a bag full of flaming fingers.






Jess, you've got some work to do. Tighten up your writing, refrain from posting about how you're not posting, stop with the asinine jokes reminiscent of Dane Cook on his worst day, and for shit's sake give us a little personality! Right now you're just showing up and expecting credit. Do the work, get involved, lay it out there, tell a story, tell us who you are and why we should care and make it worth our while to read. Otherwise you might as well be posting updates on your MySpace page.

John Bender: [after Claire flips him off] Oh, obscene finger gestures from such a pristine girl.

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