I don’t attribute value to list culture, I love making lists, and writing lists (I find it fun), but not digesting them as a reader because they can often be incredibly reductive and lack context; I do love the diary format, but to be frank, I see the diary format as something intrinsically tied to print culture. I love writing diaries – for print.
Tag: Omar Kholeif
Yes I suppose. I do feel more self conscious of what I say if something will immediately be put online and can be more easily circulated/distributed, because information can get into the hands of those who do not fully understand the context of the writing and can end up being caught up in the sensationalism of share and comment culture, which for me, can be very dangerous, just look at the racism and bigotry on the Guardian‘s Comment is Free articles as one example. When something is not freely available online, there is a formal exchange between reader/writer – and the person is either paying or seeking to be engaging with your writing in a much more considered way. I appreciate and respect that.
No. They are different things. When I have a copy of a magazine, I sit and read it cover to cover, it is indulgence, I love the smell of paper, the image reproduction, the form, I am definitely a fan of print culture. In fact, I am a huge advocate for preserving and saving it. For example, I loathe e-books, here, you have no room for marginalia, indentation, physical wear and tear, and lived experience; I am not simply being romantic here, its a different relationship to writing – in print, writing is a formal physical material in a way it simply isn’t online.
I don’t always agree with this notion. Publics online can so often be staged and or performed because individuals are performing themselves and the networks they want to be a part of. So I feel hesitant to agree on this point.
Yes, always. But the thing I love about online is that as a writer you can also become an editor, so you can experiment and propose different forms of writing, different lengths, and different visual to text strategies not enabled by print culture. Re: research – it’s an ambiguous point, I do the same research for everything I write, basically I only write about shit that I care deeply about.
Absolutely – I have no doubt about that. For a start, just think of the economy that governs print vs. online culture. The expectation when people write online is that they will not be paid or that they will be paid badly, print culture holds a seriousness which is validated by the fee structure alone. For example, 750 words in the Guardian print is approx £300, while online it’s £85 flat fee no matter what the word length. Artforum pays $750 dollars for a 1 page in print and for the same length for it’s Diary section $200. So immediately the economics of things make you relate to the form differently. The expectation is that print will be more heavily edited, negotiated, better designed, and should be more researched and considered (that’s of course, not always the case, but generally, I think point rings true). Then there are numerous other factors, which I outline below.