HTMLGIANT'S POOP

HTMLGIANT’S POOP

I spend very little time on the internet these days, and as a result I don’t tend to blog or keep up with blogs very much. A reader of mine recently brought it to my attention that a post was made on the popular literature blog HTMLGIANT that makes fun of the “internet” personalities of writers, myself included (I was apparently in the “esoteric” circle of the Venn diagram, which is kind of hilariously off base, as I am so hell-bent on demystifying things out of a distaste for obscurantism). A writer friend of mine, Kate Zambreno, was placed in the “menstrual” category, which is objectionable for obvious reasons—the whole practice of branding women “irrational” is a cheap way to invalidate women who are too brilliant or sensitive or real for these loser sexists. In other words, it’s a way to silence, contain, and deride what is seen as threatening to patriarchal cultural. That the normativized masculinist discourse might be overturned is too much for some to deal with—they have to recuperate their power by recentering their values as the default mode of engagement. But what is considered “rational” is not unmarked or neutral; it is founded on a logic of depersonalization and distance (from the body, from intimacy with the other, from what is lived and deeply felt).

Not surprisingly, Jimmy Chen—the creator of the Venn diagram—is the class clown of HTMLGIANT. His gimmicky McSweeney’s-style humor relies almost exclusively on a simple formula: [insider reference] + [something low-brow (i.e. twitter)] + [something high-brow (i.e. Virginia Woolf)] = The Joke. Hypothetical example joke: a screenshot of the annoying tweets Virginia Woolf would have made if she were alive (because women writers are always represented as obnoxious or crazy). Employing “humor” can be a way people reinforce the dominant values of society without having to apologize or be accountable. (How many times have you heard people say that they were “just joking”?) It’s the cheapest kind of humor—the kind that relies on pandering to what will “resonate” with the audience. So if our society is grossly misogynistic, more people will “get” your joke if it’s sexist, and when they “get” it they will get the fuzzy warm sensation that comes with being an “insider,” of knowing what someone is talking about, of having your beliefs reflected back at you. If your aim is to reinforce what people already feel they know—then going against the grain in your jokes will fail to signify properly. I am troubled by the way so much humor relies on identification with the worst aspects of our culture. Even humor that is “intended” to be a critique or satirical can fail to actually function as such if the reader/viewer does not perceive that the joke or representation is critical. So the ambiguity/irony of the joke can be a kind of void—an empty zone that can accommodate readings that both resist and reinforce the surface representation (I saw Darjeeling Limited while taking a class on Orientalism and thought the film was a critique of Orientalism while others felt it was grossly Orientalist…). But humor doesn’t have to be cheap like this.

I am also a contributor on HTMLGIANT. The site has a huge readership—A post made on my personal blog might get, at the very most, a few thousand hits, whereas a post on HTMLGIANT could easily get hundreds of thousands of hits (posts I’ve made on HTMLGIANT have been plugged by everyone from Andrew Sullivan to Kevin Smith). Nonetheless, I prefer to post on my personal blog rather than HTMLGIANT even though I would reach a much larger audience and get “paid” to post regularly on HTMLGIANT (I stopped posting regularly when they started paying, so I never became a paid contributor). I guess I simply do not feel compelled to put overwhelming amounts of energy into writing blog posts there. It might be partly due to the fact that HTMLGIANT can be an unfriendly place…in the comments section and sometimes in the posts themselves. The only black woman who contributes to the blog has been stalked/harassed by angry readers. On the flipside, there are also contributors who make posts that are sexist and racist. But there are also others who are right-on in their analyses.

I don’t want to excoriate all of the HTMLGIANT contributors; some are good. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people through blogging there—readers and other contributors. There are lots of folk who contribute/read HTMLGIANT who are thoughtful and passionate about literature and make a point to address race, gender, sexuality, and class. But there is also a tendency to use meanness and controversy as a tactic to lure readers in. The problem with this is that that meanness is often made at the expense of people who are already fucked by the maliciousness of the dominant culture.

Some people have written me saying that they wish I would post more on HTMLGIANT because they would want to see my perspective there. I’m still on the fence about this. I don’t know if I should try to offset and undo the bad parts of HTMLGIANT, or abandon it altogether. What do you think? If people wanted to boycott the site, I’d support that too.

Posted August 7, 2011 at 12:21pm in HTMLGIANT || home