Stitch Bitch :(

“It’s not what we wish it were.” -Everyone (reading this article)

I was really looking forward to ripping this article to shreds, but it looks like quite a few of my classmates have already beaten me to the punch.

But I’ll take a shot at it anyway. This article is about hypertext, right?

Well? Well?

Very well.

Hey, Shelley. I have an idea… DON’T WAIT TO TALK ABOUT HYPERTEXT UNTIL THE THIRD PAGE.

I realized my first gripe with this article while reading the introduction. Shelley makes jokes based on the assumption that her readers know who she is. I had to read her intro three times (each time made me increasingly frustrated) to figure out whether or not there actually was more than one Shelley Jackson. And to be honest, I’m not really sure how many there are.  Strike one.

Ok, Shelley. We’re off to a bad start. Maybe that wasn’t fair of me. I’ll keep reading. Next section: Write Mutt.

“My favorite style of writing is impure, improper and disorienting.” 

That’s unfortunate. That just so happens to be my least favorite style to read. That’s strike two.

I understand what she is trying to do here: illustrate her point by shaping her article to be stylistically similar to hypertext. But I don’t think she succeeded. I don’t know much about hypertext, but I know that hypertext is text that contains links to other things. Like this. It’s nonlinear as a whole, but the text itself doesn’t have to be confusing.

On that note, I did not like her writing style, you know, the “disorienting” kind. There are ways to educate your readers without disorienting them.

It made me mad reading the article. I’m currently mad as I’m writing about this article. And I’m frustrated in general with Shelley Jackson and her failed attempts at being coy.

You’re not who you think you are. I’m not where you say I am. We don’t think what we think we think we think think think blah blah blah. This article is polluted with these vague and mysterious phrases that are supposed to be thought provoking. But it just dragged for me.

She makes some good points but I just couldn’t stand reading this. I’m sorry for the rant.

I have to go read a book for Lackaff now. See you guys tomorrow.