The patterns that Katie curates, whether for a few hours on her Twitter, or in a more extensive and permanent way on one of her many blogs, tend to highlight the special way that the internet makes our most serious and meaningful desires and expressions come across as petty and absurd.

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There’s a whole business model built on aggregating and curating the smartest and most interesting stuff on the web; Katie has dedicated herself to uncovering and collecting the saddest and stupidest and most banal (and most obsessed with My Little Pony). Amid the hyperbole and narcissism of the internet it’s nice to be reminded of how fundamentally silly human beings actually are.

noahkalina:

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thanks for the shout out! great list

You know what annoys me? Well, actually, that would be a long list. You know one thing that annoys me? The way some people on the internet use the word “curator.” People find cool stuff online and put links to that cool stuff on their website, and they say that they’re “curating” the internet. When Jorn Barger invented that kind of thing he was content to call it a weblog — a record or “log” of interesting stuff he found online.

Now, one might argue that the weblog or blog has changed its character since Barger invented it: instead of logging cool things found online, it primarily logs a writer’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences (often about stuff found online). So maybe a new name is needed for the “logging” kind of site? 

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It’s just a matter (I hope) of distinguishing among different sorts of online activity. 

So I’d suggest this as the beginnings of a taxonomy:

1) The Linker: That’s what most of us are. We just link to things we’re interested in, without any particular agenda or system at work. That’s what my Pinboard page is, just a page of links.

2) The Coolhunter: People who strive to find the unusual, the striking, the amazing — the very, very cool, often within certain topical boundaries, but widely and loosely defined ones. I thinkJason Kottke and Maria Popova are exemplary online coolhunters. 

3) The Curator: There are some. Not many, but some. The true online curator tends to have a clear and strict focus: he or she doesn’t post just anything that seems cool, but instead is striving to illuminate some particular area of interest. The true curator also finds things that other people can’t find, or can’t easily find, which means either (a) having access to stuff that is not fully public or (b) actually putting stuff online for the first time or (c) having a unique take on public material so that images and ideas get put together that the rest of us would never think to put together. I think Bibliodyssey is a genuinely curated site; also, just because of its highly distinctive sensibility,Things magazine. 

…and has changed what we want to see. Here at my studio, we are trying to create a printed portfolio that feels more like the looseness of a blog and has the personality that can come thru on facebook. This casual tossing out of idea and photographs that blogs and facebook allow us are starting to be expected and hungered for…and I do really find that exciting.

via » 10 minutes with Timothy Archibald this is the what.