Should a “Blog Tour” be an actual thing?

I’ve been kind of pondering this idea for the entire week. As I work. As I went and saw “The Death of a Supermarket” which included phrases that would’ve made Orwell proud. My favorite had to be “The more you spend, the more you save.” That one sort of stuck itself in my mind, how little sense it made.

Bloggers need to make up those sorts of phrases, like a cute little tag they can use for themselves. How characters in your favorite TV shows have a certain line that make them not only lovable, but relatable. Bender uses “Bite my shiny metal ass”, Oprah uses “Everyone wins a free , etc.  I use “Rock On” because I want you to and because it is somewhat playful. 

Most people who write these things want to write, but don’t know how to go about it and blogging seems the easiest way of reaching a hyper specific audience. I feel like bloggers ought to tour this great land, the great US of A. Authors do it, so why not internet writers. Internet trolls could be some of their plants in the audience, deliberately placed to increase excitement amongst the otherwise tame audience. Besides, the more bloggers I meet, the more I realize that the dedicated ones should make some cash on the prospect. 

Plus, it might bring some much needed money to bookstores; maybe allow them to attract more buyers of coffee and stale pastry. Too often I see so many people writing these things and give up. Slowly the posts decrease and eventually go down to a trickle. I’m of course talking about myself; I’ve had some blogs for years. I remember putting literally several reviews of every album I heard in a day up on the internet. Since then, I’ve grown wiser. Music requires a great deal of time to fully appreciate it, what doesn’t click the first time may click the second or third. Or you could just be in the wrong mood for it.

How about a Podcast, you might ask. Podcasts are used by those with a microphone and I have my issues with them. When I hosted a radio show long ago I deliberately honed a “radio voice”. Later when I listened to my show I watched in the spectrometer how different it felt from my real voice. No matter how much I tried to speak in a normal voice, I kept on doing it. So a real, face to face meeting with people works much better with many. Without the filter of how they sound, they’d be more real.

I feel the other benefit would be the tone in which these words are said. Tone is a causality of the internet; it takes a particularly good writer to get the point across. Even great writers considered “masters” at their art gave live readings, like David Foster Wallace for example. What may have missed a reader becomes more apparent once you hear the writer’s intension. Kafka’s work suffered from a similar problem. When one of his friends was asked about the tone of his readings (yes, I know, life expectancy is a wonderful thing) he stated that the humor of the stories was more heavily emphasized than the hopelessness most associated with his work.

Did I mention bloggers work for dirt cheap? Because I’m assuming most would probably give readings for like a cheese Danish and stale coffee. In fact, they might feel they are “getting a bargain” for just being accepted in public forum. 

Part of me would be curious if this would or could even be a thing. Bloggers could help out each other, for each place they stop; they crash on another blogger’s couch/floor/collection of blankets. That way, they achieve an intellectual variation on “couch surfing”. 

Please let this be a thing. 

How can Preschoolers be depressed? Should they have spent some more time in the womb chilling?

Preschoolers all across America seem to be suffering from long-term depression, according to a recent article in the New York Times. This leads to the great question:

“How can Preschoolers be depressed?”

What could possibly be depressing about having zero responsibilities on Earth? Basically, every need you could possibly have has already been met. Did your preschool not have enough play dough? Did the wooden blocks used to make fictional cites not appear realistic to you? Are Legos just some giant Danish scam meant to drain parents’ wallets and destroy vacuum cleaners?

I wonder whether this is just another ploy to drug up kids earlier, to prevent them from thinking for themselves. Any basic interaction with their surroundings can now be muted by a few simple drugs, allowing them to become perfect little kids. Huxley might have been right; perhaps we are on our way to drugging ourselves (with pharmaceuticals) into some sort of stupor, unable to realize that the world is dramatically changing around us, by people more cognizant than ourselves.

The article discusses ways you can tell whether your child has a “depressive episode”. Lately The Times has been going further and further into childhood, from twenty-somethings to kindergartners to now preschoolers. What is next; will we hear about embryos hanging out in the womb, not contributing to our society enough? Should embryos create “hypnagogic pop” to wax nostalgic about how their life was before it existed?

Depression seems to affect everyone, according to the article. Depression can be caused by environmental stimuli or genetic factors. That makes sense, but worrying about it means that it has the potential to be abused. Look at how much anti-depressants have invaded our lives; it feels like we’re constantly medicating ourselves into feeling better, rather than doing something a bit less dramatic. How about making a cabinet, fixing something in your home, writing, making music, biking, swimming, watching TV, reading a book, breeding hamsters, designing cover art for mix CDs, performing your one-act play about the life of General Custer? Essentially, it seems by not keeping ourselves busy with some creative outlet, we’re just dooming ourselves to crippling depression.

Maybe instead of subjecting your children to interviews with puppets, maybe there’s another solution. Instead, try communicating with them, exposing them to cool bands you liked before you became a cool mom or dad. I do not doubt that some preschoolers may exhibit traits of depression, but depression in general seems to be something the US gets overly fixated on compared to other countries. I mean, look at Franz Kafka. He worked at various boring office jobs but still found fulfillment despite having such a deranged sense of humor.

The New York Times may have been speaking about preschoolers, but they might have been talking about everyone regarding depression. Doctors who worry about a possible over-diagnosis of depression may want to think about the fact that perhaps many who claim to suffer from depression simply need to find their muse.