Technorati

A quick discussion in the office about Friendster and the general smallness of the world.

All of these cool new media creatives up here in town... Its a tiny little world - you're never more than a person or so away from a shared acquaintance.

And, it seems, the game du jour should be six degrees of Dave Green.

I think I may find this depressing. Because it means it's a clique. Which means little originality and a lot of self aggrandising bollocks. Oh, and because I'm fucking propagating it.

I can remember the feeling of desperately wanting to be part of a movement, at the centre of something fresh and radical, in the underground, a trendsetter, when I was churning out 'art'. Now I look with extreme suspicion on these little coalescences of talent - I think they're cloistered and exclusive. It's not to say they haven't got talent - they have it in spades. It's more that the talent gets... herded. There aren't any outsiders, people cutting against the prevailing wind. It's like some weird cultural flashmobbing.

New Favourite Thing.

I'm beginning to think I should revisit all that stuff about 'there is no avant garde' again. The turnaround pace is so fast these days, that new 'yoof' movements are actually being picked up by the media before they have a chance to do anything of any interest. Nag Nag Nag is just New York Club Brats all over again. I don't like this. Flash Mobs - so last wednesday. Friendster - over before anyone found it. I wonder if anyone has registered mayfly.com ?

It's a similar feeling of ennui to the one I had clubbing last weekend - lots of people blindly having fun, most of them ten years younger than me, and me in the corner thinking 'don't you see that it's ALWAYS been like this? That you're no different?'. Maybe it was reinforced by all the 19 year old boys who found me surprisingly good fun to talk to, and were a bit shocked to find out I like Autechre and Aphex twin.

Perhaps I just think in the long now. I've got an image in my head of fashions changing superfast in a shop window, the sun not so much rising and setting as flickering...

Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I'm just too cynical.

Perhaps my old idea of the only valid form of resistance being apparent total conformity is the way. But then you end up like the Chap crew, making tits of yourself on the Today programme becasue your ability to articulate your posturing is... poor.

Maybe it's because the technorati is mainly youngish blokes, too.

I really should learn to piss standing up.