July 30, 2009

search and replace

Choire at The Awl dissects Bill Wasik’s op-ed in the Times comparing the Internet to “creative New York.”

Micro-celebrity and fickle taste and short attention span all have to do with the way people are, not the way the Internet is. And maybe with the way capitalism is. (On the Internet, capital is attention—until actual capital is the actual capital, a tricky transition where lots of people get confused.)

When I read Wasik’s piece I just replaced “Tumblr” for every mention of “online” or “the Internet” and it made a hell of a lot more sense.