Post-print Culture and the Ease of Procrastination

I've been sitting here, in front of my computer, trying to write this blog post for about two hours now. Maybe even more, I'm not sure. Why so long? Media and my experience with it isn't that hard of a subject to crank out 500 words or so about. But it's the fact that I've been sitting in front of my computer trying to write this which is the reason it's taking so long.

I originally planned to write my first post for this blog about a recent interview GQ with Steve Albini, a legendary producer and strident promoter of the DIY ethic. I was probably going to comment about the subversive culture of, well, subversive culture, and why it's the best, and everyone should follow Albini's point-of-view when it comes to most things. It's a pretty great interview, too. When asked "how would you describe your fashion?," he replied:

"I think fashion is repulsive. The whole idea that someone else can make clothing that is supposed to be in style and make other people look good is ridiculous. It sickens me to think that there is an industry that plays to the low self-esteem of the general public. I would like the fashion industry to collapse. I think it plays to the most superficial, most insecure parts of human nature. I hope GQ as a magazine fails. I hope that all of these people who make a living by looking pretty are eventually made destitute or forced to do something of substance. At least pornography has a function."

That quote, in it of itself, has enough substance to write dozens of papers for a class rooted in the pitfalls of mainstream media.

So I got to thinking, and brainstorming, and plotting out my points, until I decided to read up on Albini. I've listened to some of the stuff he's done, both as a producer and as a musician, so he's not a foreign figure to me. I read his Wikipedia page, a page I've visited countless times before. I cracked open my copy of Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, and reread the chapter on Big Black (Albini's first band), and then I decided to look up some interviews about him on YouTube. And that's what I've spent two hours doing. I watched some ten-minute documentary some kid made about him, telling me things I've already known from reading the Azzerrad book. I watched Albini talk about The Ramones. I spent around 45 minutes watching this Japanese band called Nirf record with him in his studio. You know what that's called? A fucking waste of time (though I must say, it was captivating to watch a producing legend do his thing).

But then I got hungry. I've got a bag of baby potatoes on my counter and a couple cornish hens in my freezer. I took a detour from my "research," and looked up a couple different recipes on how to cook roasted baby potatoes and watched this ENTIRE EPISODE of Good Eats dedicated to cornish hens.



And then I returned and watched Steve Albini tell a couple knock-knock jokes on YouTube.

Even if I only tallied up the Nirf videos and the episode of Good Eats, that's somewhere within the range of 1 hour and 5 minutes I spent watching bullshit. And I don't even own a TV.

What I am is a product of the post-print culture that Postman talks about in Amusing Ourselves to Death. Even beyond that, I'm a product of the Internet culture that Nicholas Carr wrote about in an article for The Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

It's self-inflicted ADD brought upon by the ease of access we all have to information. I assume that I am not alone in my attitudes towards productivity. I think that those in my generation with even the strictest of work ethics still have a hard time concentrating on one task, especially if that task involves being on the computer. Why is it so hard for me to buckle down and do a simple blog post? Because it's so easy for me to not do it. It's not that I don't like the assignment. I'd gladly take any chance I could to talk about myself. But it's a lot easier to just sit back and watch other people say things on a screen.

At the end of the day, do I regret watching that episode of Good Eats? Not really. I now know how I'm going to make dinner. Do I regret watching those Steve Albini videos? Not so much, as they provided insight to a figure whom I admire greatly. But maybe I'll be singing a different tune when I'm up at three studying for a midterm because it took me three hours to do a blog post.