That whole "Blogging = Revolution in Personal Publishing™" thing: Why it's tosh.

Revolution, my infected toenails. How is this a revolution? What exactly is being achieved here? Sure, there's now more opportunity for people to create quality reportage, but are you reading the Weblogs of Righteousness? Are you checking the blogs that have current events, insightful comment, charm, a desire to inform or at least entertain? Are you reading about a friend or family member? No, you're hanging round the grotty pits of weblogging, rubbernecking, waiting to see what the freaks'll do next. Yes, you are. Stop interrupting and face it.

Look! Will you look at this? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to spring one of those horribly lucid oh-god-I'm-a-tiny-fragment-of-dirt-floating-in-a-void-of-futility moments on your sorry little mind.

You are reading the online journal of an asthmatic, sporadically-employed, shaven-headed, epileptic, Goth cleaner. Picture me wheezing round a gobfull of Monster Munch, picking flakes of black nail-varnish from my manky cuticles; picture me pouring another cheap vodka and generic orange squash to wash down the allergy meds; picture me guffawing at the latest Cruel Site of the Day. And then see yourself, actually sitting in front of your VDU, reading what that person has written.

You have contrived to be sadder than a Goth. You're like, ultra-sad. You're so sad that only dogs can hear it. They're going to harness your sadness as a weapon of mass-destruction.

No, you're not being clever and ironic. No, don't try and deconstruct it. You're not fooling anyone, least of all yourself. Just sit there and let the unutterable pointless lameness of what you're doing seep into your brain until you fall, sobbing and retching, to the floor.