Shit Bloggers Say

In lieu of merely reposting the piece I published on The Faster Times earlier today, which can be read here http://www.thefastertimes.com/politics/2012/01/19/republican-race-shaken-up-in-south-carolina/,( a scintillating read in my humble opinion) I thought I'd take a second to comment on the latest trend to hit the internet.

It seems like the easiest way to go viral is to follow the "shit (insert some group) people say" model. The group can be a race, a gender, a people that share a common location, really any recognizable group of people. As far as I can gather it began with a video "Shit Girls Say" and has now ricocheted around the internet in every imaginable iteration. Obviously, some of the videos are more entertaining than others, but as a class, a genre, what does their success tell us? In my opinion, it's all about the shock of recognition. Herman Melville coined the phrase the "shock of recognition" in response to the visceral feeling he got from reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's work. It was a feeling of a shared experience, a shared state of mind. The" shit people say videos play on the shock of recognition in two ways. Using the example of "Shit Girls Say," the video is entertaining for boys because it allows them to think that their experience of girls as ditzy and annoying in a good hearted way, is a universal experience. Simultaneously, it's entertaining for girls because it allows them to pass off their worst moments as merely something has been conditioned on them by societal expectations. This is overstating the point to some degree, but what I mean to say is that it's enjoyable because people relate to it.

I thought I'd try my hand at it, and create Shit Bloggers Say:

"I have like the best blog in the world"
"I have the worst blog in the world"
"I got like a thousand page views today"
"I got that ad revenue rolling in"
"Will I ever be published in hard print"
"The internet is totally the new book"
"The internet is totally the new magazine"
"We're in age of democratic publishing"
"the era of word mercantilism is over"
"is anyone even reading this shit?"
"I wish someone would retweet my shit"
"I wish someone would like my shit"
"I have more followers than people I follow"
"What's your klout score?"

admittedly, not very funny, but whatever.