Of Evlovers and Pyrafans

Ever since Blogger got famous, and more so when they broke up and Jack Saturn wrote his letter, I’ve been curious about the politics, personalities, romance, and drama behind the whole Pyra affair. I briefly IM’d with Matt about it once, but I certainly didn’t want to seem like I was prying for gossip.

Today, this Blogroots thread offered up a link to a good bit of old history from Rebecca Mead. Mention of a “Pyra Shrine” in that article led me to, um, EvLover, formerly the Pyra Shrine. (Okay, unless it’s a joke, this old site borders on the obsessive, which I find a bit scary.)

The pioneers of Blogger have become celebrities and idols in their own ongoing soap operas, and to most of us the upheavals consist largely of words on a screen. These people’s lives and struggles are known by so many, even as they retain their private person-on-the-street profiles. (Simulacra, anyone?) It says a lot for how hypertext — and blogging in particular — has so effectively blurred the distinction between public and private space. I doubt that any online medium illustrates that postmodern phenomenon more tangibly than the blog. Are these the baby steps on the path to the utopian hyperreality posited by Baudrillaird and other postructuralists, or are we just rubbernecking journals on the web for juicy personal tidbits?

(My apologies to Ev, Meg, Jason, Matt, and all the other old guard for my being a nosy neighbor. I don’t mean to be such an A-list usisero.)

Heh. Now wouldn’t that make an interesting movie. Think Pirates of Silicon Valley. I volunteer my “voice of God” accent for the movie trailer. “In a world…”

Comments

Paulo says:

2002-10-12 at 00:46

Followup: usisero is Tagalog for a rubberneck.
sophie says:

2002-10-12 at 12:59

pau

i agree completely that blogs have become the ultimate online initiator and medium through which the public and the private is ‘blurred’. This is also a manifestation of the increasing alienation being experienced by many people from their actual, physical community, their neighbors, their families – that people feel the need to draw their lives out for the world, strangers to see, so that they co-opt that sense of community that they do not have enough of in the real world. On the other hand, blogging leads to the development of unexpected friendships with people one would never have met if not through this said medium. So, yes, the “blogging” phenomenon has become what, i think, uniquely defines the merging of ‘virtuality’ (i.e. cyberspace) and ‘reality’ in the thetic (timeless) space. :)
wyclif says:

2002-10-15 at 23:23

PoSV was such a great surprise. I had low expectations because it was a TNT movie. But there were certain charming/clever aspects of it that worked for me…particularly the fabled IBM/Gates meeting where IBM foolishly gives the store to Gates, and there is a freeze-frame where Ballmer steps out of the frame and says something like, “Now, this incident right here is where they really dropped the ball.” The other storyline with Jobs’ daughter didn’t grab me at all.
mcwetboy says:

2002-10-16 at 21:00

This is really tangential, but re that Blogroots thread: just about swallowed my teeth when I recognized one of the posters. You know who I mean. I guess this is relevant in a stalking-the-A-listers kind of way. (From the “little camper” to the “little Christian web designer”.)