Area Soldier Killed In Fort Hood Rampage
Stolen Booze Truck Found
Stroger Makes Hollywood Play
Put Down Your Nanowrimo And Leave The House
Sox Shuffle Continues
Listen, we've kept mostly quiet about the daily newspapers' coverage of the online world. We love and thrive off our paper brethren. And for the most part, aside from every story about an online trend being about 13 months behind the actual trend, we think they get it right. Hell, we actually miss James Coates, since we found his computer advice to be direct, engaging, and idiot-proof.
But Steve Johnson must be stopped.
When we read his "internet critiques" we hear every same tired, boring, out-of-touch marketing presentation that people over a certain age are in love with seeing. So, as a public service, we will endeavor to deliver his content to you, summarized, and without his s mug air of self-delusional satisfaction.
For instance this week he opined on Wired editor Chris Anderson's blockage of emails sent from PR folk who obviously have no idea what his site writes about. Johnson sneers at him, assuming that what little email is left will be offers to smuggle gold out of Iraq, or attempts to unfreeze lottery winnings from African nations. Johnson obviously misses the point entirely, or maybe he's just willfully ignoring it in an effort to make a dud of a joke. Either way, we're not sure how that supports anyone's belief that his criticism should be taken seriously.
We suppose the Trib put him in the position because folks need a "regular dude perspective," but any "regular dude" that so out of touch he can't even giggle at a LOL Cat (or, heaven forbid, point everyone to a much funnier manifestation of that trend) shouldn't be unleashing his opinions on web-related matters. We mean, dude was even against The New York Times ditching their paid subscritpion service.
OMG! WTF! Whatevs.
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haha. that totally sounds like me. what with my patrick moberg tirades (and how the whole thing was a pr stunt for blackbook and vimeo) over on gothamist.
hire me tribune!
#1; Your post is longer and more boring than his is, and #2 you don't even come close to 'summarizing' what he wrote
"Johnson sneers at him, assuming that what little email is left will be offers to smuggle gold out of Iraq, or attempts to unfreeze lottery winnings from African nations."
The real sentence reads;
"The move will allow him to devote more time to reading sob stories from deposed foreign royalty."
#3- And then you give the strange irony of stating Steve has a "smug air of self-delusional satisfaction" and then closing with "OMG! WTF! Whatevs". I don't know if thats irony, or just the 12 year old trying to make a boring friday afternoon post into something that will be cute and funny.
huckeyes, what happened to #2?
Also, this is an intro to what will be a continuing series of summaries ... I was just touching on some of Mr. Johnson's most laughable recent exploits to warm up our readership.
#2 who do you work for!
Don't you mean who does #2 work for?
it depends
The Wired thing was a joke. I think you deserve the "whatevs."
I cannot understand why he helms that column. At least give it to someone who knows what he or she is talking about. Or cares about it. Even his bio smacks of a certain distaste for the topic. Sometimes you get the impression that the Trib needed to do something with him so they gave him Internet.
At least he's not doing anymore damage to the TV beat.
I'm still confused about why he doesn't link to the stuff he's writing about in those top 5 posts. Maybe part of the Stevewatch report should include those.
maybe he doesn't know how to link. those are some of the worst jokes i've ever read. even my mom would think they suck.
Completely off-topic, but speaking of the TV beat, props to Maureen Ryan at the Trib - I love nearly everything she writes.
Mo is the best! Yay Mo!
Truth be told, I don't mind Steve Johnson. I don't think he provides the most up-to-the-minute thoughts on the interwebs, but he can be funny and I don't find his stuff completely useless. And why go after someone who provides a modicum of entertainment, as compared to some of the jamokes whose work appears on the printed page, like John Kass, Richard Roeper, or Mike Downey? And we know Neal Steinberg is smart and funny, but when was the last time you read one of his columns and felt he'd spent more than 20 minutes on it?
adler, the other columnists you've named are already the recipients of a healthy amount of well-deserved ridicule. Johnson seems to slip under the radar though. Perhaps I'm actually hurting our cause by alerting people to his existence, but his position is just another garish example of The Trib stumbling when it comes to the internets.
And j_am? Mo is awesome, isn't she? And a fine example of a critic well-suited to write about their particular subject.