Singularist: So Freaking Meta
By vouchey in Miscellaneous on Aug 1, 2005 10:33PM
Only a couple of days after launch, the Chicagoist Editorial Staff have been bombarded with demands from our über-hip friends demanding to know if we've seen Singularist. The answer, yes we have, and WE think, at least in Chicago, that it's pretty damn funny and inventive.
Launched on July 30th, Singularist is the singular effort of University of Southern California communications major Eric Richardson who, annoyed with our consistent "group commentary" and use of we - because we are members of a collective, hive-being - decided to script a site that would strip out the offending first-person plural, and make it all singular. Because he's from Los Angeles Singularist defaults to LAist, but you can read any of the other sites. Chicagoist is "cleansed" too.
Facinated with his brilliance, Chicagoist decided to interview Mr. Anderson.
Chicagoist: So, when did you come up with the idea of Singularist?
Eric Richardson: let me check
Eric Richardson: friday, july 15
Eric Richardson: it was a very spur of the moment thing
Chicagoist: And how much time did it take for you to script it?
Eric Richardson: the coding didn't take a lot of time. i was busy, so i didn't get to work on it a lot
Eric Richardson: i put the code online yesterday
Eric Richardson: the basic premise is really simple... it's just a few replacements
Eric Richardson: http://static.singularist.com/code/
Chicagoist: Do you know any of the Ist writers?
Eric Richardson: i sort of know one guy who now writes for LAist -- we email about Downtown stuff
Eric Richardson: but other than that, no
Chicagoist: How often do you read Ist? Just LAist, or the others too?
Eric Richardson: i've posted various rants about LAist in the past
Eric Richardson: just LAist. i probably check the site once or twice a day.
Eric Richardson: i just didn't think it was fair to just target them when the code could do (almost) all the -ist sites
Eric Richardson: paris was going to be rough, so i left it out
Chicagoist: very egalitarian of you.
Eric Richardson: i try
Eric Richardson: the whole "we" thing has just always bothered me, and i've taken a couple posts to task for other things as well
Eric Richardson: LAist posts are the only things that have ever made me figure out how to do a trackback
Chicagoist: what name do you make comments to LAist under?
Eric Richardson: i don't know if i've ever commented... just trackbacks
Eric Richardson: http://blog.ericrichardson.com/blog/1837
Eric Richardson: http://blog.ericrichardson.com/blog/1868
Chicagoist: So, are you planning to spice up any other blogs? Like say translate Gawker into Elizabethan English?
Eric Richardson: the problem is that grammar's hard
Eric Richardson: i'd love to make the singularist core smarter
Eric Richardson: i don't have any plans for other sites, though
Eric Richardson: i'm no english major; i was never good at parsing sentence structures
Chicagoist: So, then what's the Communications degree going to be for?
Eric Richardson: hanging on the wall
Eric Richardson: i've done computer work since before high school, but i didn't want to be a CS major
Eric Richardson: comm was a way of looking at the web from the other side and trying to get into how people interact with information
Eric Richardson: but in the end it's a nice piece of paper to say i have
Chicagoist: Well, thanks for your time. Is there anything you'd like to shout out to the Nerd-ist staff out there?
Eric Richardson: i know you've got your editorial rules, but just go out there and let your voice come through in what you write. that's what people want to read -- real stuff from real people
Chicagoist: I'll be sure to pass that along to Sam Bakken. thanks!
Eric Richardson: glad to