The Dream of the 90s

So lately I’ve had ample time on my hands. Since there’s only so much cooking eating I can do, and consequently, weight I will allow myself to gain, I find myself doing exactly what I have always refused to do: spending entire days on the computer.

[And then I wonder why I have trouble falling asleep at night.]



This has been an experiment of sorts. When I first began blogging back when MySpace was hip and encouraged patrons to post blogs on their profiles (that was so 2005), I had no rhyme or reason or theme or consistency in my posts (still don’t). Back then blogs were written by those who wanted to share their deep thoughts. The words were special. Raw. Pure. If someone happened to read my deep thoughts, they usually felt the need to discuss it with me. Blogging was just another way to be relational with one another.

But now a few years have gone by and we enter into an age that is equally dependent and easily influenced by the bloggers. In short, bloggers rule the world. Never again is there a need to buy a physical copy of a DIY magazine because everything you need is always at your fingertips. Never again is there a need for the glossy fashion magazines: Why be depressingly-inspired by anorexic and androgynous supermodels (I’d look good too if someone paid me to do it) when you can find inspiration in your friend’s cousin’s husband’s babysitter’s fashionista blog?

Because blogs now equal income, and thus, are a dime a dozen, I’ve come to realize this: Information is no longer valuable. Information is now cheapened. It is used, abused, digested, spit out, and then re-worded in order to be used again.

When is enough, enough?

At what point is it devalued?

How do you reinstate value in something that has been prostituted time and time again?

Point: Within the past few weeks, I pinned a link to a super cool wooden-pallet-coffee-table-idea, intending to, when I become fortunate enough to have a spacious home, do-it-myself. No lie, within the course of just a few days, the wooden-pallet-turned-functional-furniture-idea has been so blogged about and linked and pinned and abused that it no longer is special. Everyone’s doing it. It has no value. It has been degraded. Cheapened.

[My heart goes out to the many manufacturers who have been hit by pallet-thieves this past month.]

I guess the point of all of this is me just wondering when enough is enough. Something has got to give when trends last mere days instead of seasons; when there are a million fashion bloggers adorned in JCrew from head to toe; when there are no longer any wooden-pallets left to steal in the middle of the night; when there is literally nothing new under the sun.

I think its time for some evolution to take place. For a little survival-of-the-fittest.

I miss that old rush of feelings that used to come when I witnessed a cool idea that had never been done before.

Or if I was fortunate enough to be the creator of said idea.

I miss the smell of a glossy magazine.

Mostly, I think I just miss the good ol’ days. The 90s were it, people. They were IT.

As they say in Portlandia, “The dream of the 90s are alive in Portland.”

Will I see you there?

(m)