Close friends, family, and people I correspond with regularly on the Internet know that I read A LOT on a daily basis. Each morning, I compile a required reading list, and I add to it as the day continues. I can usually scan an article and decide immediately if I will like it. Frequently, I send articles to friends who I think would enjoy them. Reading articles whenever I can churns my creative juices, keeps me informed, and really excites my curiosity.
In the interest of reminiscing, I decided to peruse my Delicious bookmarks and find my 10 favorite media-related articles from 2009. To be honest, I thought this would be an easy task. But the number of articles that really wowed me was small. I hope for the below list to represent a diverse sampling of what delighted and inspired me last year.
“The Subtle Art of the Facebook Update” by Virginia Heffernan for The New York Times (February 10, 2009)
In 2007, a college student explained to me that he preferred Facebook to MySpace because MySpace (in his view) was for emo kids who liked Death Cab for Cutie and Facebook was for clever kids who liked words.
“Rage of the Page” by Felix Gillette for The New York Observer (March 17, 2009)
“I understood getting into TV that it was going to break my heart over and over—whether it was pitching ideas that don’t work or working on a show that fails,” said one former page. “I went into it with open eyes. But now, I don’t know that I’m glad that I did it.”
“The Lonely American: Choosing to reconnect in the 21st century” by Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz for Utne Reader (March-April 2009)
Our lives are spent in a tug-of-war between conflicting desires—we want to stay connected, and we want to be free. We lurch back and forth, reaching for both. How much of one should we give up in order to have more of the other? How do we know when we’ve got it right?
“Hipsters, Tempura Burgers, and Pets Who Want To Kill Themselves: the allure of crowd-sourced, single-topic blogs” by Farhad Manjoo for Slate (July 2, 2009)
Though the taxonomy of tumblelogs is fluid, the sites I’m talking about have several defining characteristics. One important distinction is that they’re composed mainly of stuff submitted by the audience—though pages like Stuff White People Like and Fuck You, Penguin are hilarious, I wouldn’t add them to Look at This Fucking Tumblr, because they’re largely the work of lone geniuses.
“Bright Lights, Big Internet” by Bill Wasik for The New York Times (July 29, 2009)
These new arrivals come to New York, first and foremost, to find one another, a flock of other young people like themselves. But they come also to seek success, to chase their “big break,” that vague but real moment when, as if by magic, one suddenly finds oneself on the opposite side of the glass from one’s nose print.
“World Builders” by Jonathan Harris from a talk he gave at UCLA, as part of the Mobile Media Lecture Series (October 27, 2009)
Yes, there is more social communication now than at any other time in the history of the world, but much of that communication is chatter. There is nothing wrong with chatter (and beauty often hides in chatter), but there needs to be a place for deeper, longer-lasting communication too.
“The Fall and Rise of Media” by David Carr for The New York Times (November 29, 2009)
Young men and women are still coming here to remake the world, they just won’t be stopping by the human resources department of Condé Nast to begin their ascent.
“Handwriting Is History: Writing words by hand is a technology that’s just too slow for our times, and our minds” by Anne Trubeck for Miller-McCune (December 17, 2009)
Most of us know, but often forget, that handwriting is not natural. We are not born to do it. There is no genetic basis for writing. Writing is not like seeing or talking, which are innate. Writing must be taught.
“Making art in the now world” by John Lopez for The Los Angeles Times, (December 27, 2009)
“…But at the same time, all these people stabbing at this thing called art — I mean, they’re turning over rocks and finding little animals and finding little great things under these rocks. It’s just bewildering and it’s inspiring at the same time.”
“The End of the 00s: New Year’s Eve and the Rise of the Machines” by Richard Lawson for The Awl (December 31, 2009)
Though now, ten steely years later, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Y2K did get us after all. Maybe it really did happen, just in a far quieter and more insidious way than we’d imagined then.
Do you have a favorite media-related article from 2009 that I didn’t include here? Please post it in the comments.
(Photo by meddygarnet)