A blog has a history—697 posts before this one, if I added up the sidebar correctly—but it exists mainly in an apparently endless present . Someone is on the Internet, on the publishing platform, reacting to the state of the world and the state of the commentary on the world at the moment (tag: ” Ground Zero Mosque “). If you’re that person, it’s partly like having the entire potential of the Gutenberg printing revolution in your fingertips, and partly (often the greater part) like having a giant, hungry Tamagotchi with your name on it (tag: ” The Machines “).
When I got up this morning, or even when I had lunch, I didn’t really know I’d be shutting the blog down today, on the 698th post ( Go for 700, already , cries the part of the brain conditioned to tend the Tamagotchi). That’s how the instant horizon works. Get mad about Bill Simmons’ taste in shoes and—oh, time to make an announcement: I’m going to be managing editor of Deadspin .
(Slightly late with the announcement, in fact. That’s the online news cycle.)
Deadspin appeared in the New York Times Magazine’s Simmons profile , deprived of its name and false-pluralized, in the statement “[W]e have reached a point at which sports Web sites are posting photographs said to show Brett Favre’s penis.” Pray the gods save us all from an era when journalism consists of coverage of crotch photos .
(“Anthony Weiner” was not showing up today among whatever my atomized-Internet version of Twitter flagged as Trending Topics; “Kazaam,” however, was.)
Thanks to David Plotz, for opening part of his magazine for whatever I might write about, whenever I might write it, with no editing and no particular mandate. Thanks to Julia Turner, for managing the semi-feral employment arrangement with grace and enthusiasm. Thanks to the readers, for reading and reacting.
This blog, as a blog, is stopping. I’ll continue to write for Slate as a columnist. Media historians of the unimaginably distant future, 50 or 60 months from now, will have no idea what this distinction meant. “IDK LOL,” they will say, brain straight to tactile-enhanced video, on their implanted iPhones.
And there’s also the book: Beijing Welcomes You , available August 4. Maybe I’ll be at a bookstore near you, if your bookstore is within a four-hour radius of New York. Thanks again.
