Bad Writing is the New Good

I love my temp job, because I do almost nothing all day. This nothingness allows me to beat my few remaining brain cells bloody by reading many, many blogs - most of which are about Macs, Apple, and politics. Why expand your horizons with an excellent, thoughtful, enlightening book when you can endlessly skim two-paragraph diatribes on all things geeky?

Anyway, my time is valuable (if plentiful), and it gets my e-goat to come across writing that reads like a 2nd grade book report, knowing that the person who wrote it was actually paid for it, while I bring delight to your browsers, my faithful reader(s?), for nothing. *

Here’s an example of disdain-reaping tech blog mediocrity. Some guy named Don Reisinger apparently gets paid to do a blog on home technology for CNET for reasons that defy logic. Here are some of his rhetorical volleys meant to excoriate the e-book industry in a recent posting that was also highlighted by All Things Digital:

I just don’t understand the rationale behind owning an e-book reader.

No better way to build a case than by basing it upon the foundation your own ignorance. Good start.

Let’s be honest — the only thing an e-book reader does is cost you even more money to read a book. In other words, it’s another barrier to entry just to get a book and read it. I just don’t understand the logic.

Yes, let’s be honest. Come over here, everybody, we’re going to do some honest-being. I think it’s really effective when someone breaks the ice of formality and really connects with me, you know, gives me some straight talk, by telling me they’re about to be honest. ‘Bout time! Am I right, fellas? High five, high five.

To his point. I’m sure anyone who’s picked up a Kindle or a Sony Reader will tell you from real life experience that the only thing the machines are capable of doing is preventing them from reading. Oh, and once again, he “just [doesn't] understand.”

Some say that they like to have their entire library of books available to them at all times on their Kindle, but I don’t get that either.

Yeah, I agree. That’s a tough one to wrap your brain around. I know I hate having my entire music collection stored on my iPod, so I can see why he doesn’t “get that either.” I think the more he admits his lack of understanding, the more solid his case becomes.

The economics of the e-book reader industry are off and so far, no one in the business has realized it. It’s time they wake up and see what’s really going on.

Well, thank goodness Mr. Reisinger has made us realize the folly of a convenient device that stores all of one’s books in one simple, portable, easily accessible place. It is time we all see what’s really going on.

This kind of crappy writing drives me insane; someone is touted as an expert in a given field by a respected technology site, and is even highlighted by yet another, but all he offers is something akin to a Facebook wall comment by a 12-year-old. I mean, what is Amazon’s deal? Srsly!

I’m all for the immediate, informal nature of blogs and online media, but it seems to me that when a medium takes all comers, the best should be rising to the top (and financially compensated). I am harshly belittling Mr. Reisinger’s work (as he is welcome to do to me - it could only drive traffic up), but I’m more peeved at CNET for publishing it (and the Wall Street Journal for highlighting it). If I expect anything from the larger media operations, it is, at the very least, editorial oversight. Otherwise, I can head over to MySpace to contemplate serious quandaries that begin with double-u-tee-eff.

* You may pay me if you wish.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::