It’s a deliberate choice. The Wall Street Journal, invoicing spreadsheets, BBC headlines, prescription leaflets, legal documents—there’s serious stuff ad infinitum. Judging from the popularity of BuzzFeed, Cracked and Dag Allemaal, there’s also a need for lightweight. My goal for this blog is to bridge the two without resorting to celebrity non-stories or sloth photos.
It’s not like I can’t do smarty-pants:
While much of Mythologies centers on the role of language and myth in shaping worldview and power, Barthes makes the point that meaning can be “naturalized” through the amorphous positioning of signs—both the signified and the signifier. He writes how advertising has allowed margarine to motivate consumers to consider their prejudices, because margarine ‘is a fat, after all.’[1] …By finding a commonality in ‘fat,’ butter and margarine become the same… Barthes questions the way words–or signs in their representation of the signified–can distort the truth.
[1] Barthes, Roland. (2000) Mythologies. London: Vintage Classics. p. 42
It’s just, sigh. Snooze.
To be fair, Barthes is an interesting thinker and we should not ever stop buying books or The New York Times or The Guardian (de Standaard, de Tijd, Le Soir, Le Monde, et al).
While digital dystopias or the Randian politics embedded in City Hall is fascinating to read, research & write about, it’s not content designed for Mail Chimp. So I’m sticking with fluff, hyperbole, onomatopoeia and gimmicky punctuation.
The length? Our brains become bowls of soggy cereal if we live on coffee, emojis, and Tweets.