As I hinted at above, I've never been that much in the poker
blogging world. My blog is this strange anomaly, mostly read by the old
River Street crowd and a few LiveJournalers who found me. In general, the
bulk of my regular readers are people whom I knew in Real Life before the
journal. Meanwhile, yours was actually the only blog I ever really read
of someone I didn't know until recently.
Indeed, I am so disconnected from the proper “poker blogging
world” that I frankly didn't even know there was was a blogger
tourney in Vegas until I saw that you won it in your blog (strangely,
googling for it can't even seem to turn up an official detail page about
it even now). If I had known, I probably would have tried to plan my WSoP
tournament (since I could pick any $1,500 event) around it. But, I was
out of the loop.
I think that maybe I just don't have the amount of time for online
pursuits that others do. I don't follow lots of blogs carefully; I read
backlog every few days when I get a chance. But, just following the few
NYC poker blogs that I have subscribed to is far too much content already.
I'm just not immersed into the world, it seems.
The other factor here is the disdain for online communities that I've
gained over the years. I was involved in online communities when most
people didn't know there was an “online”. From 1985 on, I was
a BBS guy, a Usenet guy, and so forth. Like most geeks my age, most of my
childhood, teenage years, and early adulthood was spent interacting with
people primarily through a computer screen. Not much good came of that
for me; I ended up in high school and college as deeply socially
awkward and spent years trying to recover.
Now, I see this strange world where online social networking has become
the trendiest thing ever, and I am totally burned out on it after decades
of feeling like it is part of the reason I'm such a social misfit to begin
with. It's hard to describe how this feels to someone who didn't grow up
on and out of BBS's and Usenet, but perhaps you can imagine. I just have
this deep sense of really really bad timing; I loved doing everything on
computers back when I got made fun of for it, and now I want out of that
world just when everyone wants in it..
So, the idea of building community around the blogging seems so
wrong-headed to me (at least at first glance). Particularly so with
poker, because I go more seriously into poker originally as a way to get
out and meet more people in real life in the first place.
Yes, I see the point that getting out and going to one of these blogger
events would be exactly the right thing to bridge the gap — turning
the blogging world into a real human connection. But, the fear of it all
going wrong is strong, especially when you've spent a lifetime trying to
bridge online life into Real Life and failing. Trying it again seems like
an obvious mistake.
Anyway, I long ago promised myself and my readers to keep my blog free
of narcissistic self-pity (heck, I even avoid telling bad beat stories),
so I should stop there. I apologize to my readers that I even took this
much of a detour into it. At least it was only in a comment.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 18:50 (UTC)As I hinted at above, I've never been that much in the poker blogging world. My blog is this strange anomaly, mostly read by the old River Street crowd and a few LiveJournalers who found me. In general, the bulk of my regular readers are people whom I knew in Real Life before the journal. Meanwhile, yours was actually the only blog I ever really read of someone I didn't know until recently.
Indeed, I am so disconnected from the proper “poker blogging world” that I frankly didn't even know there was was a blogger tourney in Vegas until I saw that you won it in your blog (strangely, googling for it can't even seem to turn up an official detail page about it even now). If I had known, I probably would have tried to plan my WSoP tournament (since I could pick any $1,500 event) around it. But, I was out of the loop.
I think that maybe I just don't have the amount of time for online pursuits that others do. I don't follow lots of blogs carefully; I read backlog every few days when I get a chance. But, just following the few NYC poker blogs that I have subscribed to is far too much content already. I'm just not immersed into the world, it seems.
The other factor here is the disdain for online communities that I've gained over the years. I was involved in online communities when most people didn't know there was an “online”. From 1985 on, I was a BBS guy, a Usenet guy, and so forth. Like most geeks my age, most of my childhood, teenage years, and early adulthood was spent interacting with people primarily through a computer screen. Not much good came of that for me; I ended up in high school and college as deeply socially awkward and spent years trying to recover.
Now, I see this strange world where online social networking has become the trendiest thing ever, and I am totally burned out on it after decades of feeling like it is part of the reason I'm such a social misfit to begin with. It's hard to describe how this feels to someone who didn't grow up on and out of BBS's and Usenet, but perhaps you can imagine. I just have this deep sense of really really bad timing; I loved doing everything on computers back when I got made fun of for it, and now I want out of that world just when everyone wants in it..
So, the idea of building community around the blogging seems so wrong-headed to me (at least at first glance). Particularly so with poker, because I go more seriously into poker originally as a way to get out and meet more people in real life in the first place.
Yes, I see the point that getting out and going to one of these blogger events would be exactly the right thing to bridge the gap — turning the blogging world into a real human connection. But, the fear of it all going wrong is strong, especially when you've spent a lifetime trying to bridge online life into Real Life and failing. Trying it again seems like an obvious mistake.
Anyway, I long ago promised myself and my readers to keep my blog free of narcissistic self-pity (heck, I even avoid telling bad beat stories), so I should stop there. I apologize to my readers that I even took this much of a detour into it. At least it was only in a comment.