Back off, Carina Chocano!

About a week ago, Carina Chocano -- a "self-employed" sort of "freelance writer," if her LinkedIn is to be believed -- wrote a tad-too-touchy piece in the New York Times about Pinterest, Tumblr, and general user-generated content aggregation websites. Only she calls these websites "longing machines," and concludes with an ever-so-melancholy note that the sites define "the life we think we were meant to have but don’t, the people we think we should be but aren’t."

By extension of Chocano's theory, my time spent curating on "The Fancy" is a fruitless pathological pursuit to fool myself into thinking I'm a man of "taste" and "style."

Pshawww...act like you have this kind of taste, Carina.

Personally, I think Carina's essay is about as valid as any journalist cum philosopher can churn out when applying analytical skills learned in their college comparative literature classes to modern technology. RE: It's all wish-wash. Because you're right, Ms. Carina: "People don’t post stuff because they wish they owned it, but because they think they are it, and they long to be understood..." Sounds kind of like the supposedly intellectually untouchable Jonathan Franzen telling the Kenyon College Class of 2011 that the "telos of techne is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes ... with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self." Thanks for the advice, J. Franz! I'll be sure to avoid modern technology from now on!

Sure, people use online profiles -- even Pinterest portfolios consisting entirely of images -- to define how they want to be viewed by the world. But I think anyone who has ever viewed a Facebook profile filled with "deep" quotations and ostentatiously heart-felt status updates can see that these profiles act as more then just, y'know, profiles -- their an outlet for self-expression, self-realization and social understanding. So Ms. Chocano, I'm here to tell you: your behind the times, but not in your use of technology. Your antiquated in your realization that technology is deeply entwined with people's emotions and understanding of themselves. Heck, David Foster Wallace hit on the soul-churning isolating effect of technology in his 2005 Kenyon Commencement address. (On another note: those Kenyon College grads must really be a happy bunch...)

Basically, I find these overly-intellectual technology pieces at once embarrassing (for the writer) and confusing. What exactly does Carina want me to do, once I acknowledge that my "Fancy" portfolio is a web of self-deceit? Stop looking at "Vans California Era Washed Paisley" and "Cheesecake-stuffed strawberries?" Cuz if that's what you think I'll do, Ms. Chocano, then you don't know B.Doyle...

Damn those are sexy...