Wasting Time on the Internet 101
November 18, 2014 12:26 AM Subscribe
The New Yorker's Kenneth Goldsmith tells why he's planning to teach a course called "Wasting Time on the Internet" at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I have no doubt that the students in 'Wasting Time on the Internet' will use Web surfing as a form of self-expression. Every click is indicative of who we are: indicative of our likes, our dislikes, our emotions, our politics, our world view."
"I have no doubt that the students in 'Wasting Time on the Internet' will use Web surfing as a form of self-expression. Every click is indicative of who we are: indicative of our likes, our dislikes, our emotions, our politics, our world view."
I in all seriousness had a conversation at an academic conference last week about what a ripe field for exploration the history of boredom is. I don't think any of us were joking. Totally a zeitgeist thing.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:21 AM on November 18, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:21 AM on November 18, 2014 [7 favorites]
I... I think I've found my calling.
posted by JHarris at 1:26 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 1:26 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Quick note: pullquote exchanged for more representative choice, as per OP. Carry on.
posted by taz (staff) at 1:45 AM on November 18, 2014
posted by taz (staff) at 1:45 AM on November 18, 2014
I've been studying for my M.Fil. for fifteen years.
posted by rory at 2:17 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by rory at 2:17 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
The New Yorker's Kenneth Goldsmith? He will always be WFMU's Kenny G to me.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:18 AM on November 18, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:18 AM on November 18, 2014 [4 favorites]
How is this class anything other than "tvtropes.org" written in massive letters on the whiteboard?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:09 AM on November 18, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:09 AM on November 18, 2014 [9 favorites]
So if you spend the class writing papers for other classes, do you fail?
posted by carter at 4:46 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by carter at 4:46 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
Follow-up course: Wasting Time In Academia - A 400-Year Study
It's lunchtime.
Today, I already have: learned new skillz in rebooking train tickets online, learned about Magna Germania and the limits of Roman expansionism, discovered that a combined sculpture/ham radio station/generative poetry thingy is being launched into space at the end of the month, discussed worm breeding and skin disease with a woman who has everything (including earthworm farms and psorisis), added several notes to my projects-never-to-be-completed file (the story behind OLPC, the novel about bell-ringing on Neptune, the Fairy Tales Your Parents Can Read Their Grandkids That Teach Both About Online Society picture-book) and absorbed half my recommended daily outrage/exasperation from MeFi.
I have not done: any of the things that earn me money. But I will. Just as soon as I post this.
Tell me, what can I learn - what can any of us on the blue learn - from a mere professor?
posted by Devonian at 4:56 AM on November 18, 2014 [8 favorites]
It's lunchtime.
Today, I already have: learned new skillz in rebooking train tickets online, learned about Magna Germania and the limits of Roman expansionism, discovered that a combined sculpture/ham radio station/generative poetry thingy is being launched into space at the end of the month, discussed worm breeding and skin disease with a woman who has everything (including earthworm farms and psorisis), added several notes to my projects-never-to-be-completed file (the story behind OLPC, the novel about bell-ringing on Neptune, the Fairy Tales Your Parents Can Read Their Grandkids That Teach Both About Online Society picture-book) and absorbed half my recommended daily outrage/exasperation from MeFi.
I have not done: any of the things that earn me money. But I will. Just as soon as I post this.
Tell me, what can I learn - what can any of us on the blue learn - from a mere professor?
posted by Devonian at 4:56 AM on November 18, 2014 [8 favorites]
You could learn to spell "perfesser", for one.
posted by Wolof at 5:02 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Wolof at 5:02 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
Devonian: I wish I was a lazy enough skimmer to preserve my initial impression that you wrote "combined sculpture/ham"
posted by idiopath at 5:09 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by idiopath at 5:09 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
Tell me, what can I learn - what can any of us on the blue learn - from a mere professor?Surely you could argue that goofing off at university, missing deadlines, procrastinating, doing stupid things at parties, and generally under-performing gives you all the skills you need to thrive in the modern workplace? I'd say that the vocational value of a degree proves itself more obviously in this regard than in almost any other.
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:18 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
If only there were a MOOC for this, where you could waste time on the Internet right on schedule with thousands of fellow students, and maybe get some kind of badge or other type of recognition...
posted by kandinski at 5:28 AM on November 18, 2014
posted by kandinski at 5:28 AM on November 18, 2014
Relatedly, Goldsmith's Printing Out the Internet tumblr and his giant conceptual poem "No. lll 2.7.93-10.20.96," a 600-some page listing of words and phrases copied off the internet and put into alphabetical order.
Also, while his essay was printed in The New Yorker, doesn't saying "The New Yorker's Kenneth Goldsmith" imply he's part of their regular staff of writers, which I think he is not, though here are links to the four essays he has written for the magazine to date, which are all related to his overall project of confronting mass media information and conceptual (re)writing/(re)presentation of it.
He's an interesting figure, and I appreciate what he does -- and how much he pisses off some people doing it.
posted by aught at 5:46 AM on November 18, 2014
Also, while his essay was printed in The New Yorker, doesn't saying "The New Yorker's Kenneth Goldsmith" imply he's part of their regular staff of writers, which I think he is not, though here are links to the four essays he has written for the magazine to date, which are all related to his overall project of confronting mass media information and conceptual (re)writing/(re)presentation of it.
He's an interesting figure, and I appreciate what he does -- and how much he pisses off some people doing it.
posted by aught at 5:46 AM on November 18, 2014
Tell me, what can I learn - what can any of us on the blue learn - from a mere professor?
You can call Goldsmith a lot of things -- usually it's labels like "conceptual theorist/artist," "experimental poet," "writing performance artist," "lunatic," "huckster"... or even "fraud" by those who dislike his projects that re-present other texts -- but "mere" professor isn't actually one of them.
But then this FPP was a bit of an invitation for anti-intellectual snipes in the comment thread, wasn't it?
posted by aught at 5:56 AM on November 18, 2014
You can call Goldsmith a lot of things -- usually it's labels like "conceptual theorist/artist," "experimental poet," "writing performance artist," "lunatic," "huckster"... or even "fraud" by those who dislike his projects that re-present other texts -- but "mere" professor isn't actually one of them.
But then this FPP was a bit of an invitation for anti-intellectual snipes in the comment thread, wasn't it?
posted by aught at 5:56 AM on November 18, 2014
You all fail.
At least we're all part of some future project of KG's as we do our failing online.
posted by aught at 5:57 AM on November 18, 2014
At least we're all part of some future project of KG's as we do our failing online.
posted by aught at 5:57 AM on November 18, 2014
He will always be WFMU's Kenny G to me.
He has 4 shows devoted to reading fake traffic? Holy shit this is the best.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:00 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
He has 4 shows devoted to reading fake traffic? Holy shit this is the best.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:00 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
I was so confused by his use of 'paper mill' to mean an essay-writing business. I completely read that sentence as "students will be required to buy paper from a paper mill and put their name on it" which makes no sense - what's so taboo about writing your name on blank paper? - and it took me like five rereads to pick up the indefinite article before the word 'paper' and finally figure it out.
Long story short - a paper mill is a factory that makes paper. Please find an alternative term for a place that sells pre-written papers, Kenneth.
posted by Dysk at 6:51 AM on November 18, 2014
Long story short - a paper mill is a factory that makes paper. Please find an alternative term for a place that sells pre-written papers, Kenneth.
posted by Dysk at 6:51 AM on November 18, 2014
Aught - it was self-deprecation rather than anti-intellectualism. I'm British.
posted by Devonian at 6:51 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Devonian at 6:51 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
Dysk: I recall on at least one occasion, on a road trip, lamenting "oof, I can smell that paper mill", to the amused confusion of the others in the vehicle, who had never heard of an actual paper mill, and used it only as a term for essay-writing businesses.
posted by idiopath at 6:55 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 6:55 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
this FPP was a bit of an invitation for anti-intellectual snipes in the comment thread, wasn't it?
I don't see anyone here doing any anti-intellectualizing. We're all in awe. Validation at last!
posted by rory at 6:56 AM on November 18, 2014
I don't see anyone here doing any anti-intellectualizing. We're all in awe. Validation at last!
posted by rory at 6:56 AM on November 18, 2014
anti-intellectualism is stupid.
posted by sylvanshine at 7:33 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by sylvanshine at 7:33 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]
idiopath, well at least wikipedia has my back: "For businesses that sell academic papers, see Essay mill."
posted by Dysk at 8:13 AM on November 18, 2014
posted by Dysk at 8:13 AM on November 18, 2014
anti-intellectualism is stupid.
If this be intellectualism....
posted by IndigoJones at 9:48 AM on November 18, 2014
If this be intellectualism....
posted by IndigoJones at 9:48 AM on November 18, 2014
He will always be WFMU's Kenny G to me.
He has 4 shows devoted to reading fake traffic? Holy shit this is the best.
Back when his show was on, my household audio programing was a binary system. WFMU, from the airwaves not the internet, or nothing. I couldn't skip programming as I can now. I would have skipped his shows, that fell squarely into WFMU's "irratainment" product category.
Now, many years later, it is those shows that I remember best, and even with some fondness, from that period.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:40 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
He has 4 shows devoted to reading fake traffic? Holy shit this is the best.
Back when his show was on, my household audio programing was a binary system. WFMU, from the airwaves not the internet, or nothing. I couldn't skip programming as I can now. I would have skipped his shows, that fell squarely into WFMU's "irratainment" product category.
Now, many years later, it is those shows that I remember best, and even with some fondness, from that period.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:40 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm on a selection committee for a new position at my academic workplace at the moment and one of the applicants, in response to our request for "strong programming skills" wrote that they were skilled at web browsing. I am not even joking. Now I'm thinking they should totally have fleshed that point out something about how Wasting Time on the Internet is actually an academic pursuit.
posted by lollusc at 4:59 PM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by lollusc at 4:59 PM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
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