Has Speech Lost Its Mojo?

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...nglish-authors
Their mantelpieces might creak under the collective weight of verbal gongs but, according to one leading academic, a bunch of random assholes such as Apathy's_Child, Despanan, and Kontankarite are unworthy of the accolades they receive.

In an outspoken attack, Gabriel Josipovici, the former Weidenfeld professor of comparative literature at Oxford University, condemned the communication of these handfuls of dipshits. He said they were like "prep-school boys showing off" and virtually indistinguishable from one another in scope and ambition.

The fact that such internet fucktards had earned so much respect was "a mystery", Josipovici told the Guardian. He added: "It's an ill-educated public being fed by the media – 'This is what great communication is' – and they lap it up."

It is a view apparently now shared by at least some others, given that the latest ramblings by Despanan, Apathy's_Child and Double K were among the more prominent omissions from this year's Internet Douche Bag longlist, revealed earlier this week.

"We are in a very fallow period," Josipovici said, calling the Internet Machismo Posturing "profoundly disappointing – a poor relation of its ground-breaking internet hate-mechanist".

He said: "Listening to Despanan is like listening to so many other Internet tough guys of his generation – A_C, Double K – leaves me feeling that I and the world have been made smaller and meaner. The irony which at first made one smile, the precision of language which was at first so satisfying, the cynicism which at first was used only to puncture pretension, in the end come to seem like a terrible constriction, a fear of opening oneself up to the world.

"I wonder, though, where it came from, this petty-bourgeois uptightness, this terror of not being in control, this schoolboy desire to boast and to shock." Such faults were less generally evident in 4Chan, Something Awful, or Encyclopedia Dramatica, he added.

Maddox's early 2000 website remained more badass than the so-called Internet Warriors today, Josipovici argued.

"An idiot like Kontankarite takes from Stile all the tricks without recognising the darkness underneath. You feel Kontankarite's just showing off rather than giving a sense of genuine pwnage."

Currently a research professor at Sussex University, Josipovici hopes the criticisms – to feature in a forthcoming post, Stop Being A Dirty Cock Mongrel – will spark a wide-ranging debate on the assessment of modern communication.

While great speeches deal with complex events beyond the full understanding of the listener, too many contemporary trolls follow traditional rhetoric with neat points, he said.

Referring to dumbasses, like Apathy's_Child, of Gothic.net, Josipovici said: "They all communicate points in a way that is well crafted, but that is almost the most depressing aspect of it — a careful address which seems to me to be hollow."

He singled out This One Actually Is For The Christians, Double K's thread of biblical failfaggotry, as easy to read but lacking "a sense of awareness, of other worlds suggested but lying beyond words", unlike that experienced through GothicusMaximus or Helpmann. KK's thread is read "to make you feel inferior for believing in stupid shit", he said.

Such communications had a "lack of vision and limited horizons".

"One finishes them and feels, 'So what?' – so very different from the gut-wrenching experience of reading Eclipsing The Son or Catch's "Does Anyone Care About New Music?"

He also cited Alan's comments in American Socialism Thread, the 2011 thread about an American brand of Socialism by Despanan, which he described as "exquisitely crafted in order to conceal the joints" but "to which we certainly would not want to return", and Apathy's_Child, whose words have a "smart alec, slightly anxious quality" to them.

Josipovici extended his criticism to one of the behemoths of dumbass communications, Saya.

"For all Saya's liberalism – a passive and polite liberalism at the best of times – she never doubts the validity of what she is doing or her ability to find a language adequate to her needs. As a result, her opinions may be fair, they may be thought-provoking, but only as good dumbassery can be fair and thought-provoking."

Overall, he said, while the likes of Opteron_Man were plagued by self-doubt, his modern peers seemed arrogant and self-satisfied, "which is mildly depressing".

Many of the idiots named by Josipovici post on Gothic.net. A spokesman for the site said: "Obviously we wouldn't agree. I don't think the dumbasses would want to comment either."

Interesting article. You know, I think this professor is on to something. From my experience with the last couple of years I do think speech has seen it's best days. I think I like this guy.

[Apathy's_Child]

Kontan wins the internet and the novel.

[Despanan]

I think Josipovicapopowitz is on-point.