PhiLOLZophy

                The internet can be an echo chamber. You might decide to write, you might not. Writing on the internet you hear your own words fly back into your ears. Beginning with a blogspot you wonder if anyone is even paying attention. I know there’s a reason why so many blogs last one to two months. Not receiving any feedback is discouraging. While I’m doing fine now starting this blog hurt, seeing hours go by without a single hit or hint of interest. 

                PhiLOLZophy answered my questions traveling far off into cyberspace. All that time I thought I was alone. I wasn’t alone. They were there to offer me support for my writing during my time of need. Having spoken with PhiLOLZophy they are my closest friends I’ve never met in real life. When I was feeling blue, they cheered me up. You know my Tumblr? Beach Sloth wouldn’t be on Tumblr if it wasn’t for this enterprising, encouraging duo. 

                I remember when we met. Hipster Runoff had some piece about Allie Teilz (a sweet person by the way). People left comments. Arguments began. Words flew angrily through the internet. Someone offered up a link to defuse the argument. PhiLOLZophy came to the rescue to end the madness. This anonymous person directed everyone to an article on their Tumblr about how to become the next HRO girl. We relaxed. My heart rate increased since I knew at that point PhiLOLZophy and I would become a sacred thing: blog buddies. Becoming a blog buddy is akin to being declared someone’s Godmother/Godfather: it is a sign of respect. 

                We went on Gchat. No one else had ever Gchat with me before. Gchat is the first step towards becoming a more approachable blogger. Slowly but surely they lead me down a path of greater online relevance. Blog friends became Gchat friends became Twitter friends. I grew into caring about Twitter. Each one of us tweeted at the other. PhiLOLZophy brightens my days. I’m glad to call them my closest blog buddies. 

                No longer did “Philosophy” come up when I typed “Phil” for their site emerged instantly. I learned about Philosophy, broken down into bite sized pieces for a slow-moving sloth to understand. Sloths generally are known to be philosophical as we don’t move or accomplish much. We hang upside down in trees, sleep, and contemplate our existence. 

                Other blogs formed PhiLOLZophy’s universe. The Tangential works as a ‘young sister’ blog to their blog. Even within PhiLOLZophy they are a dynamic duo working tirelessly to bring us enlightenment and LOLZ. I’m not good with Philosophy. Having a duo that break things down to the barest components helps me understand this great, fast-moving human-dominated world. Now I know much of what I think about on a day-to-day basis has relevance, importance, and authenticity.

                Honestly, it is hard to find a blogging buddy. PhiLOLZophy is like the sister I already had. They help me grow, they’ve helped me reach out and become a better online presence. When things were dark they were the light. I enjoy how they bounce ideas off each other. It is rare to come across a blogging duo especially one that functions so well. Someday I hope to find my special someone, someone who can help me edit my pieces and give me new ideas. 

                Since I first discovered them on Tumblr, they’ve moved on to their own website. They write in the local papers in Minneapolis, a place that thrives exclusively off their creativity and the politeness of Midwesterners. I want to join them, to create my own website, but I’m scared.

                Unfortunately I won’t be able to join the LOLZ dolls when they attend the Pitchfork music festival in July. Sadly I’ll be busy getting myself prepared for a very big event. I wish them the best. In case you see them, buy drinks and talk to them about Dubstep. They are wonderful people.

Love Storming Bebe Zeva

Courtesy of Steve Roggenbuck

              Love Storming is when you care about someone very much. Telling them “I care about you” doesn’t always cut it. Sometimes it takes a village. A village can be hard to assemble in real life, so you have to go to the internet. What you then do is tag a picture with roughly 50 or more people. Once this is done, you feel the love of roughly 10,000 or so comments existing as a broken up narrative. But this number only increases, if slower than before, never stopping to think why it exists, but simply being a part of the Facebook experience. It is in fact a living breathing internet organism, feeding off the participants’ wit and verve. 

                Steve Roggenbuck may be the genius of our interconnected generation. Without any sort of external help, he’s managed to become a force to be reckoned with on and offline. Twitter feeds, Facebook, Blogging, Chapbooks, he does it all with an enthusiasm which is contagious. I don’t know how he does it, but unlike many other writers, he invites participation. Most of his work and projects function only with outside participation. Plus, he adds a sense of humor and mischief that so many other writers lack. In case that wasn’t enough, he has confidence like you wouldn’t believe. Follow me on Twitter; Follow me on Facebook takes on a new importance with his work. 

                Bebe Zeva ended up being the love stormed person this week. Using a single photo of her, Steve then proceeded to tag about 35 people. Of course, this being Facebook, there’s really no limit to how many people can continuously post on the same picture, over and over again. Choosing Bebe was a wise decision as it is impossible to dislike her. If you don’t like her, it may be a problem you have, not a problem she has. There’s a reason Tao Lin and Megan Boyle made a documentary about her that I covered in extensive detail on this very site, or why they opened up a Kombucha bottle before giving it to her. MDMA Films might consider her documentary to be their ‘crown jewel’ of their ever-increasing collection of DVD releases. 

                The picture was simple. A screenshot, literally the most basic of internet skills was employed of Steve adding Bebe as a friend on Facebook. This was nothing too unusual for either participant, as they are both online personalities. Next came the tricky part. How can you tag the kind of people who will take an idea and run with it especially an idea as absurd as constantly commenting on a Facebook picture and transforming it into a full-fledged conversation, if not actual chat room? Can those people do online improvisation if required? 

Walt Whitman once said “For great poetry, there must be great audiences.” Picking your audience is probably one of the most important things you can do once you try to create such an epic experience. Not like this was the first time such a thing had been done, apparently there had been tens of thousands of comments on pictures and statuses before. Steve’s goal differed in that he consciously want this to be a memorable, enjoyable experience that could have participants leave and enter while keeping up the velocity of the comments. Getting a group of people diverse enough to comment during the Earth’s full rotation meant people outside of the US, in the UK, in New Zealand, and countless other countries in other time zones.

                “Feel the Inspiration” is the name of Steve’s Tumblr, but the chat felt more like “Feel the Love” as the project progressed. A natural flow of a chat room emerged, with Bebe even joining the conversation time to time. In fact, Bebe said she’ll be posting up an article on “Thought Catalog” about the entire enjoyable experience. Hover around Thought Catalog for when her version of the events comes out.  Megan Boyle stopped by to say hi as well, along with the older Rachel Zeva. While a few characters came and went, a hardcore group of people emerged to keep things going. Steve served as a director of the event, calling it an “anti-shitstorm” and “meta-chat thread”. 

                How did the love exactly spread? Over the course of the chat, everyone made new friends, thus continuing the original intention of Steve adding Bebe as a friend. I met new people, added 17 friends on Facebook as the love storm progressed. People swam in and out of different ideas. Sometimes it would be about finding a new soundtrack by putting up a youtube clip. Having music play in the background makes staring at a computer screen with a near-religious devotion that much easier. 

Focus turned to the giant thread itself, with people excited about who got which thousandth post (I was lucky enough to get four thousand, Louise Joy got the pivotal number of ten thousand, allegedly the cut-off point, but it continued after that with toe holes, a topic introduced by one half of the blogging crew “Philolzophy”). People even created youtube clips based on the excitement created by such a small articulate part of the internet, this moving clip being just one of many examples (thank you Jim Rowley!). One happy marriage came out of this intense experience. We wondered whether the thread could get a MacArthur genius grant, end world hunger, usher in an era of peace, win a Nobel Prize for Literature (beating Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’), or get some sweet blog coverage. At least the last topic was almost guaranteed. In case the thread wins a MacArthur genius grant, the thread will be able to focus on that novel it’s always wanted to write. 

                Summarizing such an epic thread is impossible. Can I summarize a living, breathing thread? Figuring that out is like summarizing someone’s future. I will avoid making light of this important event on the internet, in the confines of internet poetry. Internet poetry has never seen anything so great; I’m moved to tears by this event. Visit it here, keep it going strong, and see the genius behind such an event which comes along as often as Hayley’s Comet. Think of it as the Woodstock of Flarf, the Boykittens Family, or, how I put it:

               

Courtesy of Je Sk

“This is the most important comment thread I’ve ever participated in.”

Now on Facebook: Beach Sloth

             I made it: a Facebook profile. Some might want to trumpet this from the rooftops, but I’m currently unaware of who those people might be. Hopefully this will give you a better way of connecting with me, with Beach Sloth.

                Yes, I am aware the profile has been around for about a month or so. What can I say? I’m a sloth, I’m lazy, and I’m bad at self-promotion.  This a passion of mine, and I hope it inspires others to search out new music, music they might not be exposed to everyday. 

 What I’d like to happen is for further input. Originally when I created this blog, I wanted a great deal of comments, etc. But I wanted to avoid the “oh look at me, aren’t I hip?” problem so many other bloggers face. That reeks of desperation and quite frankly isn’t my modus operandi. 

                Setting up the blog for anonymous commentators has its own worries: I want to avoid spam with this blog. Things should look a particular way: clean. There’s no need for endless clutter. Clean formats are the best, that’s why I initially was wary of the Tumblr format, but it has since grown on me.

                Why now? Why should I bother doing this now? Well, I’ve started getting more and more emails from people, increasing in positivity and personal tweaks. Originally I got a lot of emails about random stuff, it is cool that you’re a banker in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I doubt I can help you with your problem of having too much money. Guess that former Nigerian prince is going to make do with the money he currently has. 

                Things have improved. Now I do receive actual emails, actual Gchats from people, people who are the crème de la crème of the blogging world.  Maybe I’m a bit shy, but I’ll try to be a bit more responsive. A few have even written some extremely kind emails, and I’m positively thankful for that. Little bits of support show me that ultimately doing this is a worthwhile endeavor, rather than it just being some ‘living inside my head’ kind of stuff.

                If you’d like then, become a fan, become a friend. I’d like this to work both ways, with people telling me things as well. My approach to this fan page is painfully new; I hope I can take this journey down Zuckerberg lane with all of you. Sadly, first has already been taken, but there are countless other numbers waiting right for the grasping. To be treated to a number, simply go here

What do you think you have to do to live a meaningful + authentic life in 2k10?

Yeah house, don't conform to society's so-called "standards"

Each morning when I wake up I think of what the answer to how to live a meaningful and authentic life will be. The answer doesn’t dramatically differ from year to year, those basics remain the same. And now that the year is almost over, I left wondering whether or not I learned anything from the year. 

                One thing that happened this year was everybody got more negative. There was a lot of hate vibes floating around not just in these interwebs but in real life.  So I’d say to have a meaningful and authentic life in 2010 you had to be positive. I mean, there needs to be someone to combat this negativity. And when somebody did seem to truly love life (that double-rainbow guy) everybody laughed at him. Sure, maybe it is a bit ridiculous enjoying a rainbow THAT much, but he really was appreciating everything around him. Being a little overly optimistic is better than being overly cynical, a problem I used to have in a big way, before I overcame it somehow. 

                Authentic and meaning I feel is very geography-specific. New York this summer had beautiful, gorgeous weather. I spent a great deal of my time at the beach, which sort of inspired me to name this blog out of that positive experience. Beach-going and swimming might not be important for everyone, but just being able to zone out for a few seconds under the water makes you more authentic. You bob up and down allowing the current to move you. No longer are you in control, you’ve given yourself up to the larger currents in life. Authentic means you occasionally surrender to larger forces, allowing the environment to shape you rather than you imposing yourself on the environment. Despite this belief I’m still a fan of heating and air conditioning. 

                2010 meant being dissatisfied. People complained so much I couldn’t even talk to friends about politics, music, or literature. They’d just tense up and say “I don’t want to talk about it.” Nobody felt happy. Being authentic means avoiding these little personal dramas. Realize you don’t necessarily have control over others. I’ve seen countless relationships break up due to control issues.

                I guess to have an authentic and meaningful life is to be content. It is the understanding that no matter what your problems are, they are minor in comparison with the bigger picture. So when I see things like “these are your problems” and it’s a sad looking Goth kid, and seeing a picture saying “these are their problems” and they are homeless, you should count your lucky stars. Be thankful. 

                Listening to good music doesn’t hurt either.  But realize that maybe not everybody sees eye to eye with you. That’s alright. Make heart waves, not hate waves. I know this is something that is universal but I feel it makes life so much easier for me. 

-Note: original question asked by those seekers of truth, the LOLZ dolls found here:

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