Michael Sippey has it all wrong. "I've come to believe," Sippey explains by way of temporary sign-off on his Web zine Stating the Obvious, "that what the Internet does not need is yet another damn commentator pushing out 850-word essays." It's a curious image: the Web as repository for ceaseless narcissism, a hall of mirrors all reflecting the same lint-encrusted navel. And it's a commonly held delusion amongst those who make their livings partially or entirely from Internet-related analysis. But there are 100 million Web pages out there, and millions upon millions of registered domains just waiting for public detonation. Are there really more than 20 sites obsessed with the Web itself?
Or is it just that those 20 sites are among the few that provide something genuinely lacking from more conspicuous, more mainline, traditional media sources? Sippey's Stating the Obvious certainly did, and this writer has grown to depend on it - specifically the site's Filter section - as an incredibly adroit, well, filter on the state of the Web. It's easy to understand Sippey's desire for "hiatus," notwithstanding the ominous resolution that usually ensues when the term's employed. Daily publishing regimes sprung from solitary authors, after all, end in burnout far more frequently than earn-out. And self-financed projects seldom have the marketing imperative behind them to drive traffic, notice, and the constant feedback that makes such efforts worthwhile.
All of which scarcely mitigates the dismal realities of the site's present darkness. Whether the pause is rightly understood as a cry for help, vacation, or promotion, the site will be missed. And, until then, other not-yet-jaded observers of the digital tangle and I will have to continue surfing those other 19 sites not yet done in by their own hard-earned exhaustion. Off to Soundbitten.
