Since one is considered to be a failure in life if no one recognizes you, it makes cutting-edge sense to learn this indelible lesson in college/art school.

This is a Dr. Who episode, isn't it. The new season.

So, no still life, lotsa self-portraits. Got it.

Would Norman Rockwell be sitting on a stool in front of a canvas, looking not at a mirror but a video of himself uploaded to YouTube?

@Michael Jahn: Future Parsons adjunct faculty: [blogs.guardian.co.uk]

Oh dear. We're really doomed, aren't we? Sorry, but it makes no difference who the president is, what countries we invade, or who has or doesn't have medical coverage. Internet 'fame' is considered by an entire generation to be the single most important metric of human worth, and there is very little which is deemed unacceptable to achieve it, nearly to the distraction of all else.

These kids aren't old enough to do any real damage yet, but we're in for a very, VERY bumpy ride in about ten years or so, when they'll need to attempt to be productive members of society with jobs and bills and such.

You're in a tree and the forest falls, who hears you?

Alternatively,

I blog, therefore I am.

@che_leo: Tough graders, they would be.

What ever happened to just cutting off your ear?

@Michael Jahn: Conversely, I blog, therefore I am. And,

If a tree falls in a forest, dare we make toothpicks?

@Michael Jahn: Or, I am, therefore I blog. Can't drink my own coffee today.

I would like to make the internet Internet Famous.

@LolCait: That would be cool, because you never hear anyone talking about it.

@She Blinded Me With Omniscience: Especially not on the internet. But if the internet became Internet Famous then everyone would talk about the internet on the internet making it Internet Famous all over again and again and again until the world has spun itself dark and all that's left is an echo of a faint whirring sound.

@LolCait: I would like to make Famous meaningful.

Oh god here I go with age again, but this bullshit reminds me of the Matrix bullshit which reminds me of a lot of the acid damage kicking around in 1967. "There's no such thing as reality." "Computers run or are everything." "We're trapped inside a computer-generated illusion." I find it entertaining that the most intense acid freak mental illusionist I ran into in those days morphed seamlessly into computer programming. He went from one false reality to another. He probably surfaced in Silican Valley in the late 70s and now works for Steve Jobs. Or is Steve Jobs. These Parsons kids are probably his grandchildren.

@Conbon: To make Famous meaningful you'd have to make Famous famous but it would have to be meaningful to be famous so Famous would have to be famous in order to be itself.

Accio Comments!

@Conbon: HAH.

That's better.

@LolCait: Now my brain is just the echo of a faint whirring sound.

@Michael Jahn: My point being that even the weirdest space cadet can find a way to thrive once he outlives those who know he's full of shit. In ten years these Parsons kids will have made the Internet three-dimensional (truly three dimensional, I don't want to hear anything about the tao of hyperlinks) and ten years after that we'll all live inside it. Probably pretty comfortably, too. Social Security. Medicare drug benefits. Which we'll really need.

Ya know, not to beat the decaying corpse... But why does every single Gawker writer use Julia A. as the whipping post when it comes to self-promotion and over-exposure when her much-lamer, vomit-inducing, unfunny, zero-sense-that-he's-a-joke, ex, Jakob Lob-stunt is available for abuse?

I mean, fuck! Sure, Julia can test one's patience, but Jakob coined the term "fameball" and APPLIED IT TO HIMSELF despite the fact that he has never actually done anything, anywhere, ever.

Julia's kind of... Yeah. But, holy fuck! She never credited herself with as many imaginary laurels as shit-assed-unfunny-douche-slouch Jakob did. Look back at his history. This squirming little shit really thinks he did something, the preening sissy.

Nick, Richard, et al... Can't you maybe focus on a more insultingly self-referential piece of nothing when discussing "Internet Fame"? At least Julia doesn't seem to think it means much more than getting invited to parties. Jakob thinks it makes him someone important and quotable. But he really is just another freaking Internet Mongoloid in need of killing.

Love,
Ian

@Michael Jahn: I'm reminded of Neil Postman's observation (in Amusing Ourselves to Death, I think) that the difference between 1984 & Brave New World is that Orwell imagined a world in which information would be suppressed and disappear, and Huxley imagined a world with so much information - much of it useless - that people would be rendered passive and egotistical by the glut of it.

Welcome to the orgyporgy, everyone.

@Ian Spiegelman: I think that's a fair point.

@LolCait: I thank you.

Where's George? We need a locker room discussion about this Sarah Myers person. Also, Shallon Lester from yesterday.

@LolCait: I dunno. I like the JA. Thing. You've created your own fameball reality. I sense a Warhol moment.

@valet_of_the_dolls: Passive, egotistical and stupid... the insidious attrition of the quest for knowledge and wisdom - as opposed to just sound bites and distraction - is nearly terrifying to me (e.g.: making literary or historical references and knowing many people can only relate if they saw the movie.)

@Michael Jahn: Why on earth would anyone want a Warhol moment? You're not supposed to want that. The Wharhol experience is the opposite of living.

Taking a class whereupon your grade is determined by pagehits/internet popularity is like my biggest middle school fear materialized. While school sucked if you didn't lunch @ the 'cool' table, at least I always had the being good at class thing down.

Don't take that away from the uncool, Parsons!!

Am I in the minority in thinking this is actually a great concept for a class? I'd take it in a second (and fail).

@SneakingThroughTheAlleyWithLalley: Yeah, but the funny thing here is that none of the people on the internet are actually cool.

EXCEPT FOR ME NOW DO MY HOMEWORK LOSER.

@Michael Jahn: I'm pretty sure the only truly tragic thing about Our Fast-Paced Modern Life is that no one's found a reflecting pool big enough for the entire Internet to fall into.

@Ian Spiegelman: Not in this new world it ain't. It IS living. We created a bunch of colorful characters none of whom seem to do much but attract a great deal of attention, and we're all sitting around talking about them. Gawker is the new Factory.

@Conbon: OK- here's your trig hw, and the Steinbeck paper will be done tonight, I promise.. can I keep my lunch money this time?

@Michael Jahn: I wouldn't argue with that, except that I think Andy's Factory created nothing of interest except, a tiny bit, the Velvet Underground, and they are hugely overrated.

But I actually really enjoy a lot of Gawker's commenters and writers. I don't enjoy Andy's crap-ass silk screens and cloying fruit hangers-on. But, then, I don't really get 20th Century art beyond Jasper Johns.

@Ian Spiegelman: Thank you for being the only other person I have run into who thinks that the Velvet Underground is hugely overrated.

@Michael Jahn: Well, you're welcome. But I know there are more of us. It's so cold in Alaska my ass.

@Ian Spiegelman:

Hello lover. Didn't we have this debate last night? Jakob had a hand in creating two successful companies. Julia talks about herself and Britney Spears for a living, when she isn't posting pictures of herself.

I think you have gossip columnist sympathy for her, which I understand. Except you wrote a well received book for your troubles. Which I ordered.

I give credit where due.

@Michael Jahn: I agree about VU. Also, don't get the Warhol soup can logic/art. In fact, I hate it.

@Ian Spiegelman: Oh, okay. Googled you. I thought your name was familiar. Miramax Books, eh? I'll pick up a copy.

@karion: My love! Well, I still don't agree that Jakob's "companies" needed him at all. I still say he just established domains where people smarter than him could post content.

And you may be right about my sympathy for JA. I don't like all the picking-on. But it really is because they leave Jakob alone and he sucks!

But which book did you order? I mean, no one earth bought my second novel, and that's the one that deals with gossip and fame and whatnot. If you actually ordered that one I truly must marry as soon as possible. Or at least clean your apartment or something. I mean, wow, did thing die fast!

Now, how do we set up our own he-said-she-said blog?

@Michael Jahn: That would make a total of ten, counting my Mom, Dad, and cousins.

@Michael Jahn: I hope you asked before you Googled Ian. No means no

@BalknChain: Oh, there you are. If you keep changing your avatar I'll be completely lost.

Warhol and his cadre were a bunch of real and would-be artists and other creative types sitting around a loft or whatever it was getting whacked and making up things with which to amuse themselves. And then imagining that their creations were important to everyone. Superstars. Andy would have loved the Internet. He would have especially loved this Parsons thing. He would have loved thuggish paparazzi. The whole point was to get famous.

@Ian Spiegelman: Gotcha. Been down that road.

@BalknChain: I was wrestling with some commenters and then it changed... It felt icky.

@Ian Spiegelman: Whoops, meant this for MJ

@Michael Jahn: ...the whole point was to get famous -- And the joke is on the world. Got to admire that while despising it.

@Ian Spiegelman:

Welcome to Yesterday. I got the last one on Amazon!

I don't know much about JL, but I don't think I can jump to any conclusion that his companies didn't need him. I suspect they needed him at least as much as Star Magazine needs JA. I would put Jakob on my "phone a friend" list (sad little Who Wants to be a Millionaire reference)long before I would her, even if the question was about Desperate Housewives.

We truly need our own karionandian.com domain, don't we? It will be like that Elizabeth Perkins-Kevin Bacon movie, only funny and entertaining! We could be the internets' first blog-only couple!

I'll be in San Francisco next week. I see from his site(s) to which we were directed earlier today that Jakob is there too, smarting from the pummelling he got from his former beloved. Want me to deliver a message -- stand under his window with a rose in my teeth or something?

@karion: Ug... Stupid fingers of mine. I meant, if you actually ordered the second novel I wrote, I must marry you at once. Or clean your apartment.

And the last thing was, Wow did that thing die fast! Meaning my second novel.

Grr. Arrgh.

But sales aren't everything. Right? I'm gonna cry.

@Ian Spiegelman: But for the rest of your life you can add the word "author" after your name.

@karion: Crap! You answered while I was writing to you!

Alsp, the very last copy Amazon had? Really?

I think we need to grab karionandian.com immediately! It would be just like that movie with Liz Perkins, except please don't throw a coffee mug at my head ever? Please?