By Ross Sewage, Impaled

I haven’t written online in awhile. There’s a reason. I came to the conclusion it didn’t matter.

I used to do a blog on MySpace. It had quite the following for a minute there. MySpace used to be novel and I followed suit by writing blogs the length of.

Yes, MySpace was once new. You think I’m not 0ld sk001? Beyotch, I was writing crap on Friendster when Job For a Cowboy was still on dial-up. LiveJournal? I was there before Trivium lyrics featured boats, rudders, and strange mountains. Of course, I was writing blogs while fucking off at my job and getting paid hourly.

I don’t work at that sweet, sweet office anymore. I work at home now, where my time actually does mean money, or lack thereof. I’m not going to write blogs about super villains of the 1980s if I have to actually do quantifiable work for money in order to (kind of) eat. It just doesn’t matter.

Even less relevant was anything I wrote political. It’s amazing how people shut down after “their guy” lost. The election of 2004 ended all political discourse amongst my online friends through sheer melancholia. It seemed as though nobody wanted to debate anymore whether it was John Kerry rubbing a human femur on George W. Bush’s sphincter during his inauguration to Skull and Bones, or vice versa.

A friend recently reposted a blog I wrote about Dave Mustaine’s inane lyrics and his reversal in worldview onto the official Megadeth message board. Most of the responses stated I was a jerk and I had too much time on my hands. Whilst I concur with the former observation, the latter is coming from people who spend time posting on the Megadeth message board. Online intelligence, two words combined that can’t make sense.

One thing I’m certain of is Dave was absolutely furious and surely raised his fists to the sky and screamed, “Damn you, Sewage! Damn you to hell!”

A lot of these blogs were funny. Many were angry and some sad. All of them were completely irrelevant. Almost everything online is.

I say almost, because at one point I read… no wait. I heard it on the radio. Fuck me. It IS all irrelevant.

What I heard on the radio was from a comedian named Marc Maron who used to have an absolutely brilliant show apparently not enough people listened to. Well, it was on liberal Air America, an AM radio network that counted their listenership on two hands. Maron’s show could only muster one. He was on a rant about America’s Got Talent, or, as it’s more colloquially known, “The Absolute Abortion of Anything Culturally Redeeming Left in America.” The key issue brought up in his rant was about content. Like the networks’ ability to exploit desperate amateurs who will do anything to be on television, the democratization the Internet hath wrought is an exercise in free content for corporations.

How much money does MySpace dole out for episodes of Chad Vader sitting next to a sponsored ad for Good Luck Chuck starring Dane Cook and Jennifer Alba? Squat. How much was MySpace paying me for blogs posted next to banner asking “Whose Celebrity Body is This?” Dick.

Blogspot. YouTube. MySpace. Facebook. DailyKos. Photobucket. 360. Flickr. Are these really the populist windfalls people in the blogosphere rave about? No. These are websites owned by massive corporations raking in profit. Remember the sinking feeling when conservative oligarch Rupert Murdoch bought out OurSpace? Nothing changed, because it’s a gold mine with miners who work for free.

That isn’t to say I deserve money for writing. Sure, I had some regular readers who were certain I should be paid for my genius. I tried to get writing gigs for magazines. I failed miserably. I got offers from other websites to write more free content, though. Those articles I wrote ended up on those websites’ MySpace profiles: not even on the actual websites.

Is this the tragic story of a suburban-bred white male D-Grade musician on being underappreciated? No, this is the tragic story of overappreciation.

Online content is overappreciated. The Internet is overappreciated. YouTubed today, but will you care tomorrow?

Remember All Your Base Are Belong to Us by the Laziest Men on Mars? Seven years ago, that Internet meme had some legs. That was entertainment, being privately emailed to anyone who had a computer for a good six months! How about that more recent Chocolate Rain video by… what’s his name? Who was that eyeliner guy defending Britney Spears? I already forgot what video it was I was talking about.

How about those political movements on the web! I’m sure the fat cats in Washington are shaking in their boots when all those Mr. Smiths virtually march on Washington via their laptops in a local Starbucks. The blogosphere won’t stop the Iraq war by writing endless lists comparing George W. Bush to the devil any sooner than the Baby Boomers stopped the Vietnam War by taking LSD and passing crabs to each other during a rock concert. (Side note: the Baby Boomers like to think they stopped the Vietnam war in the sixties, even though it really ended in 1975 and they were too busy disco dancing and snorting coke to care anymore – but don’t say anything because they’re really old now, anyway)

Despite my lengthy tirade, here I am, writing another blog. I’m doing it so maybe thirteen or fourteen people who see Impaled’s name up on the Decibel website will take the time to download a free song off the Impaled MySpace profile*. This could translate into three or four people coming to an Impaled show and buying a beer. That will justify the one drink ticket I get from a stinking dive in Boise.

Yes… I am totally shilling my band. IMPALED IMPALED IMPALED. At least I’m getting that in return. The lesson learned? Give up on relevance and grab what you can.

* You can also download two new songs from Last Gasp, Impaled’s forthcoming LP, on Willowtip’s homepage.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.