TerenceDorman.com

I sat down at my living room table yesterday with a bowl of soup and a glass of milk as my healthy lunch. As I do most days, I flipped on the television to find some sort of sitcom to watch during the half hour it takes me to enjoy my meal. The television clicked on and, as it always does, started on NBC.

I happened to catch a few minutes of some news program that must run during the lunch hours. The particular segment I caught was some attractive woman doing a quick rundown of some headlines, appropriating about thirty seconds to informing her viewers of the news and then giving her own opinion on the subject. The first headline I happened to catch in its entirety was regarding Facebook.

As I’m sure most of you know, a little while back Facebook implemented this new Timeline interface for profiles. Nobody had to switch to it and people generally didn’t like it, but it was a new option. According to this NBC news program, a few weeks from now all Facebook users will be forced to switch to this new Timeline interface, whether they like it or not.

I don’t really care at all about Facebook’s Timeline or what it does with its users. I use Facebook and I certainly don’t like every change they have made. The fact of the matter, though, is that I have nothing to do with those decisions and there is nothing I can do it about it short of deleting my account. I’m definitely not a fan of Timeline but I’m sure I’ll get use to it.

My issue is that Facebook changing its user interface classifies as news. I understand that almost the entire world uses Facebook and that the information is relevant to pretty much everyone. But is it really news? Does it really deserve a minute or two on a news program? I’m extremely curious to know what this Facebook news edged out as far as importance or relevance goes.

I’m not going to get into a giant rant about the media and news programs as that is meant for another day when I’m focused on that particular topic. Instead, I’m using this story to segue into a piece I wrote during my senior year at St. John’s University.

The piece was written for a Fiction Creative Writing class and our instruction was to write a monologue in the voice of another person, real or fictitious. I chose to write in the voice of Spider Jerusalem, the main character of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan, one of my absolute favorite comic series. The piece kind of exemplifies and shares some of the thoughts I have about the media and the government and how people see both entities, and this recent Facebook news bit reminded me of the piece.

I hope you all enjoy it. If you like it, or thought I did a terrible job imitating Spider Jerusalem, please let me know.
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As I’m sure all of you are aware, the holiday known as Christmas was celebrated all across the world three days ago (barring time zone confusions). While Christmas started as a religious holiday, it has transformed over the centuries to take on new forms of life and celebration. For some it is still that deeply religious holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, while for others it is simply a time of merriment, cheer, and gift-giving. Regardless of it’s meaning to the individual, Christmas is an event that cannot be ignored and has become a mainstay in our social and economic cultures.

I have been a huge fan of Christmas for as long as I can remember. My parents and family always made Christmas a wonderful spectacle and it really stuck with me. From the moment Thanksgiving dinner is over my entire body is stuffed with Christmas spirit. I have so much Christmas spirit that I created my own custom red hoodie that resembles Santa’s outfit, which I only wear between Thanksgiving and Christmas of each year, and I wear it every day. I even go to great lengths to dedicate my car with lights, ornaments, a tree, candy canes, and the like, the spread Christmas cheer as I drive around the neighborhood.

This year, on top of my usual traditions, I decided to bring Facebook into the fold. I woke up on Christmas morning, opened gifts with my family, ate our traditional breakfast, and then sat down the computer with one goal in mind. I decided that on this Christmas I would start a new tradition, one that would see me write “Merry Christmas!” on the wall of each and everyone on of my Facebook friends.

It seems, however, that Facebook is not a fan of that.
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Believe it or not but one of my favorite moments in comics is found during the conclusion of Brian Azzarello’s twelve-part Superman story “For Tomorrow”. This is one of four Superman stories that I actually enjoy and respect and, oddly enough, it is the only one of the four that takes place in regular continuity. Of course every Superman fan hated it and DC has basically ignored it since it finished, but that’s to be expected from a story in which the only people who like it are people who hate the Superman character.
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In his most recent blog, my good friend Max Cantor discusses the relationship between marketing and products as it pertains to creative people. As he puts it, “all creative people–hackers, writers, painters–are tempted to engage in the conceit of ‘marketing avoidance.’” I can certainly say from my own experience that I share this sentiment and would even challenge it further. For some creative types, especially writers, I feel there is another level below “marketing avoidance.” Although “marketing avoidance” is certainly detrimental to writing as a profession, that level just below can be far more damaging to a writer as a whole.

The way I perceive it, there are three levels of avoidance that a writer can engage in. The top level, and least damaging to avoid, would be “critic avoidance.” Moving down the ladder we come to the already discussed “market avoidance.” The third level, however, is the most dangerous to a writer and should be avoided at all costs: “total avoidance.” Every writer has experienced it at least once in their writing career, the horrible moment in which you want to hide your writing away forever, leaving it only for archaeologists to dig up long after you and your descendants have long since passed and can avoid any kind of judgement.

While this kind of mindset may be fruitful for those to come one thousand years in the future, what good does it do you now? What is the point of writing if you are not showing it to anyone?
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