Today I read - partially, at least - two different articles on two different topics, both with the same problem. I'm not going to do the authors of those articles any favors by linking to them here, instead, I'll just tell you was that one article was a subjective rating of fast food sandwiches, and the other was an argument against buying an Xbox One. If you want to go hunt these piles of garbage down and read them for yourselves, that's the only hint I'll give you.
Both articles were written in a sort of, "Oh my god, I'm so hilarious, I'm so fed up with the way the world is, I just can't take it anymore" rhetorical style. It's supposed to be funny, but it's not. It's weirdly self-absorbed, containing, as it does, the assumptions that the reader cares about the subject matter in exactly the same way the author does, that the reader is largely incapable of coming up with as many "hilarious" sarcastic comments about the subject matter as the author is, and that the reader cares more about the author's commentary than information about the purported subject matter.
People just need to stop writing articles like this. Readers don't read articles to collect a list of tepid zingers about the Quarter-Pounder With Cheese. They might care about the Quarter-Pounder With Cheese, but the zingers are beside the point.
Now, you could argue that people don't care about my opinion, either, so why put it on my blog? Well, for one thing, my blog doesn't appear in anyone's Google News feed - not even my own. For another thing, nobody reads my blog, so that's a red herring.
Anyway, if you have information or analysis to share with the world, please do so. But I'm not reading your news articles for the affectation, I'm reading for the information and analysis. Behave accordingly.
Both articles were written in a sort of, "Oh my god, I'm so hilarious, I'm so fed up with the way the world is, I just can't take it anymore" rhetorical style. It's supposed to be funny, but it's not. It's weirdly self-absorbed, containing, as it does, the assumptions that the reader cares about the subject matter in exactly the same way the author does, that the reader is largely incapable of coming up with as many "hilarious" sarcastic comments about the subject matter as the author is, and that the reader cares more about the author's commentary than information about the purported subject matter.
People just need to stop writing articles like this. Readers don't read articles to collect a list of tepid zingers about the Quarter-Pounder With Cheese. They might care about the Quarter-Pounder With Cheese, but the zingers are beside the point.
Now, you could argue that people don't care about my opinion, either, so why put it on my blog? Well, for one thing, my blog doesn't appear in anyone's Google News feed - not even my own. For another thing, nobody reads my blog, so that's a red herring.
Anyway, if you have information or analysis to share with the world, please do so. But I'm not reading your news articles for the affectation, I'm reading for the information and analysis. Behave accordingly.
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