thoughts on the medium and voices.

[kuangning]

I'm watching an interesting thought thread unwind in crschmidt's journal, that started with him saying he won't listen to the phone posts, and then laying out the reasons why. Although he seems to have changed his mind, or at least decided to concede by molding technology to eliminate his most pressing objections... I agree with him.

I don't listen to audblog posts. I've done so for exactly two people thus far, and in those cases it was because I already had an idea in my head of what their voices sounded like, and was curious as to whether I was right. (I wasn't.) What I found, that should not have shocked me, but did, was that their speech did not live up to the rhythms and warm flow of their writing. They hemmed and hawed, paused painfully, stumbled on -- it was beautiful, in its own right, and very human, but it brought me close to tears, to hear such confident, skilled communicators humbled and hobbled by the limitations of their voices, and, to a greater extent, their sense of audience.

When I write, I write for myself. I may direct it to you, I may even address you, but even when I have one of you in mind -- and I often do; I like holding an image of one of you in mind and pretending I am writing just to reach you -- I know that I am my own intended audience and critic, and I often deliberately efface any betraying evidence that I directed a post to anyone in particular. The trick serves well for e-mail posts -- they are letters sent to myself, reaching you along the way.

The thing about audio posts is that, without an intended personal audience, voices tend to fall flat, to fail to inflect words, to fail at expression. And it is too easy, sometimes, to speak. The act of typing these posts usually demands time and effort -- expenditures that make me less willing to waste them on the truly trivial. Writing demands forethought and at least an attempt at laying out my viewpoint in a clear and ordered fashion. The art and immediacy of speech allows for rambling, jumping from one thought to another, meandering through a thicket of barely-related ideas. That's beautiful when a listener is in a position to interrupt, slow the speaker down, or ask for clarification. It is not, however, the best format for a journal if you are expecting participation and feedback.

I'm certainly not saying "phone posts evil!" But I will not likely be doing any myself, and I may not be patient or curious enough to listen to yours.

Comments

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I love your email posts, for what it's worth. Seeing your writing in these posts has been one of the reasons why I'm so very glad for the feature.

I have mostly changed my mind, simply because it's a geeky fun thing to do and all. I'm all about geeky fun things, and these fit into the category. However, I completely understand your reasons as well, and I respect that.

I was actually quite upset and considered deleting the post after a lot of negative feedback to start with, but eventually realized that it was actually making me think more than I would have otherwise, which is something that I respect, and I worked out a lot of issues in my mind related to it.

I enjoy hearing people's voices, but I enjoy it on a more personal level than that, and the phonepost definitely loses out on that aspect.

I like your viewpoint on it. Very eloquently stated, as is everything that you write, which is something that I can respect regardless of how I feel about the information contained.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Now you're making me want to try one. I didn't know it was a feature.

Hmmmmmm.

[kuangning]

It almost is. Audblogs are done on a different site, but LJ's adding the capability here as well -- it will go live very soon.

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

I agree. Audblog posts often ramble on too long -- if the speaker actually had to transcribe their babblings, they'd find themselves deleting entire sentences if not paragraphs.

The most successful audblog post would probably be a recitation of an already-written post, in all of its careful elegance.

(There are some audblog posts I've enjoyed, though: hearing different accents from different parts of the country, listening to people reciting favorite poems, and the occasional absurd joke, as when beatnikside recorded the speech function on his computer mechanically complaining "I need to take my medication.")

[kuangning]

*smiles.* yes. And really, I'm not saying those posts can't be worthwhile and a welcome break -- they certainly can be. But I think someone who tried to rely on them to fulfill all the function of a journal would be doing himself a disservice.

[fifthconundrum.livejournal.com]

I love voices, but I hate being tethered to a computer for more than a few minutes at a time, unless I am reading. That's why I have listened to very few audio posts. I usually skip them. I hate to do it, but right now I don't have the patience to listen to them.

[phenyx.livejournal.com]

Heh. I don't listen to audioblog posts - for an entirely different reason.

I can't be arsed.

I read much faster than most people can talk, indeed, I read faster than I can listen. I can vgrep a page of 20 posts for interesting in the time it would take me to listen to one typical midsize journal entry.

Next time I come up with a good rant, though, maybe I'll try making a recording of it. The way I see it, my thinking, writing, and speaking styles are very closely bound - and this collective style lends itself well to polemic. ;) I'll make it worth your while to listen to.

[johnbot.livejournal.com]

I like the term "vgrep".