Some chick says
thank you for saying all the things I never do
I say
the thanks I get is to take all the shit for you
it’s nice that you listen
it’d be nicer if you joined in
as long as you play their game girl
you’re never going to win

Today I just want someone to entertain me
I’m tired of being so fierce
I’m tired of being so friendly
you don’t have to be a supermodel
to do the animal thing
you don’t have to be a supergenius
to open your face up and sing

Somebody do something
anything soon
I know I can’t be the only
whatever-I-am in the room.
So why am I so lonely?
Why am I so tired?
I need company
I need backup
I need to be inspired.

On academic blogging, my point is worth expanding on slightly. The more I study online culture the clearer it appears that there is a hierarchy in the scholarly blogosphere, particularly in new media fields, that normalises particular modes of engagement. This is epitomised in Henry Jenkins’ recent incitement that academics blog which ends with the advisory: “posted by Henry at 1.00 am”. I’ll have more to say about this in the book, but overall it worries me that the knowledge that media scholars have about the infrastructure of the web – including how linking to each other and tagging posts increases their search rankings – can have the effect of significantly skewing the representation of what scholarship currently exists and is available to an outside audience (note the only comment on Henry’s post so far, but thinking too of journalists ‘under the pump’ and looking for quick copy).

For the moment, then, I figure that as someone without access to a suite of grad students or industry insiders to provide regular content under my header, at a rate of output that the pundits have deemed necessary to retain eyeballs, I’ll get on with doing some actual scholarship that might be able to expand the currently very narrow pool of (mostly American) voices available in my field – if not in a Google search, then at least in a database search, presuming we can encourage our students to move beyond citing only bloggers in their essays and teach them the literacies appropriate for academic writing in these times.

Anyway. I see this as your space and wouldn’t read it any more if you weren’t blogging on it. No offence to the excellent people who’d no doubt write interesting stuff here. Despite your misgivings about being an ‘academic blogger’ you ought to acknowledge that this blog is also a way for other people who don’t see you often to keep up with what you’re doing.

Your relinquishing blogging also underlines the end of an era for me: the era in which I thought I might become an academic. It is like the doors of the academy are closing behind you in my face.