dressing up forum posts
funny how easily swayed most people are by packaging. reading an LRC article this morning, it hit me that it sounded pretty much like someone holding forth on IMDb or some other yap yap forum, where the post would likely be responded to casually or just ignored. the usual bleh. put it in official colors and format though, and with most readers it gains that special oomph.
i can write LRC articles in my sleep. i may be the only person to have been accepted into the LRC-writers stable twice; after leaving LRC, i reentered cloaked as an attractive persian woman, complete with picture (the woman in the picture graciously gave her permission for the ruse). with nearly every LRC article you write comes an avalanche of laudatory bullshit. put the same thing on a forum though — without the usual cutesy contrivances of the authoritative-columnist-voice and the tightassed avoidance of contractions — you’re a wanker, not a “writer”.
great perspective exercise: any store with racks of packaged trinkets, check the price on something, then imagine that thing thrown casually aside in someone’s house; instant devaluation, much of it from the absent packaging.