Max Receives A Dinner Invitation

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:21:10 -0500
From: "California Area Dinner Conferences"   Add to Address Book
To: max_punkt@yahoo.com
Subject: You're invited to a Dinner Conference in California...

Beverly Hills Torrance
Santa Monica and more...
  This June, a select group of people like yourself from the Beverly Hills area have been invited to join us at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel for dinner and a local business conference. Please make every effort to attend for this important semi-annual event.

"People like yourself", and who is that? Max? How can Max attend this dinner? Do they expect Max to appear at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel? Do they have the power to make him appear? Are they magicians? They claim that Max can have a lucrative blog, isn't that magic?

The Foundation of Blogging

Max Punkt's The Blog Review signifies the empty content that floods web space. The blogosphere's shape is determined solely by response. The unanswered question is: who is responding. However, it is most often dismissed and curious identities form a presence that participants take for granted. In fact, the process itself requires assumption, or else it would loose the speed on which it must run. Blogs are quick and temporary; there isn't time for a lengthy comparison or analysis within its own sphere.

Case Study 8: a comment

From the comment page at the Hot Ambercrombie Chick blog:

Max:
"Your citizenship reeks from the title of your blog, facetious or not. Not many people in the Congo are shopping at their local Abercrombie, nor ranting about how it is shamelessly commercial. Another privileged white "chick", who claims there is no such real thing as citizenship: try telling that to the mexican workers."

I agree completely, they're using American terms, benefits of being American, but they do not want the responsiblity that comes with that. It's a note prevalent in society these days, they want benefits but no responsibilities.
Peter Dodge

Here Peter Dodge addresses Max and qoutes him as a real source to which he is responding. Without a clue, Peter is conversing with a transparent identity. He believes he is having a real dialogue; taking the time to write a comment in response to someone he doesn't know. In fact, he even agrees with Max; and this is occuring on innumerable blogs, let alone 'chat' rooms and so forth. Is there not an empty din in these voices? Who are they really speaking to?

Case Study 7: e-mail

"Drew" e-mails Max, "I love it!" He continues to say the blogoshpere is too self-congratulatory. Isn't Max guilty of the same offence? How can "Drew" agree with someone he doesn't know to exist?

Case Study 6: Wankette

The anonymous post commenting on 'Wankette' seems enraged. Again, one is put in the position of wondering who it is. Wankette herself? A friend? Devout reader? Or another upset Blog Review follower? The comment suggests that their feelings were hurt, the ad hominem argument against Max, focusing on a syntactical mistake while skirting the larger issue that Max pointed at: people making money off of other people's reporting and claiming, as was done in the June issue of Wired, to have an inside tip. It is strange that one would feel compelled to comment, nonetheless, on such an anonymous blog. It begs wondering about the person behind that 'anonymous' identity and the insurmountable task of taking any of this in earnest.

Case Study 5: Boing Boing

Here is an email from the bloggers at Boing Boing:
"Maxie-Waxie!

I forgot all about this! As one of the "new breed of people in denial,"
I forgot it was my turn to "gentrify a neighborhood and evacuate the
old residents."

Thanks for reminding me. I'll get right on it!

Big wet sloppy kisses to you -- Mark"

Facetious and proper in its boundaries against taking Max Punkt serious, yet the urge to reply in and of itself takes Max seriously enough to respond to him. Mark focuses on a fallacious observation of Max's, which humorously reveals something about Mark's vulnerability: his sense of truth and where he is choosing to display it. Or does he, whoever 'he' might be, not believe anything that he is writing? If one considers the Boing Boing site suggestion page, which is where Max erroneously placed his review (in effect, recommending to not recommend their own blog on their recommendation page; in other words, the title must've displayed to them that someone was recommending their own site to them) on purpose, to illustrate his desperate attempt to make them read his review of them, then having considered their suggestion page one reads that they have little time for they are very busy. Thus, this email must mean more to them since they do have such little time. A curious thing indeed, especially for a blog that claims to show all that is beautiful, implying they spend their time on such things, rather than bitter blogs from random identities.

Case Study 4: Kinky Carinne

A blogger emailed max and asked him about how he selects blogs to review. Max thought that it would be best to review her blog as a case in point. Amazingly, Anonymous came in, angry with Max. The wide assumptions and language suggest their anger, but its impossible to know. Perhaps, Carinne writes a few anonymous comments herself, whoever he or she might be behind this 'identity'. On her blog, one commentator gave up her personal email and blog as well, responding to Max's prodding, "are you afraid?" This has been the most absurd exchange yet, and if one can take these comments seriously, which I'd never recommend doing, it reveals people whose boundaries are extremely permeable. That an identity, Max, could anger them is remarkable. It causes one to wonder to what extent they believe what they encounter on the internet. If a site looks official, do they automatically believe in its authority or search engine's capablities?