Blog Love Omega Glee: To Blog Or Not To Blog? (6 May 2012)

"That guy over there just took a picture of us," Jake tells Francine as they stroll through the exhibit hall of the independent media conference, a potpourri of people, publications, and pothers.

"What guy?" Francine says, stopping and turning around.

Jake points out a bland young man in a gray hoodie.

"He's a fed spy," says a middle-aged blonde woman with a nosering sitting behind a table with some zines on it.

"That wouldn't surprise me," Francine says, "It's another way for the government to waste money, and they love doing that."

"He's been taking pictures all weekend, and he obviously doesn't quite fit in, but not in the way the rest of us don't fit in. Unlike the rest of us, he fits in mainstream society just fine; that's why he doesn't fit in here," the woman says, "They always send a young agent every year. I'd kick him out, but they'd just send somebody else. At least this one seems somewhat incompetent."

Francine picks up a zine from the table and opens it up, "Are these yours?"

"Yes, I'm Litrifle. That's my zine Pammunition. It used to be about my old roommate Pam, who skipped out on some bills, but over the years it's moved from petty character assassination to become sort of a libertarian Luddite litzine. Do you do a zine? I'm up for trades."

"No, I do a blog called Franzine."

"A blog? There are a zillion blogs out there! No one reads them. You should do a zine."

"I like zines, but I find doing a blog is cheaper and reaches more people."

"I read blogs," Jake says.

"Do you want a cookie?" Litrifle says.

"Huh?" Jake says.

"Do you want a reward for reading a blog? Who cares if you read blogs?"

"Well, you just said that no one read blogs, but I read them. Therefore logically it's not true that no one reads blogs since I read them."

"Is this guy another government spy?" Litrifle asks Francine.

"No, he does a wrestling blog."

"Oh, Jesus."

"I have thought about doing a zine," Francine says, "It's just that photocopying is so expensive these days."

"Tell me about it. Though I have found a copyshop that's so cheap, I think it's run by the CIA just so they can more easily keep tabs on us underground subversive types who only communicate through print. The computer publications they can easily keep track of, but we're a bit harder to control."

"I'm surprised they even try," Francine says, "In the past few years I thought American intelligence agencies had gotten so lazy that if they couldn't Google something, they just pretended it didn't exist."

"That's why I don't trust computers. They're just a way for the government to spy on us. Also, they're stripping all the human out of humanity. They want to turn us into predictable, profitable organic machines. Tell me one good thing computers have ever done."

"Oh, c'mon," Jake says, "They've enabled us to do lots of cool things."

"So name one, Chuckles."

"Jake, my name's Jake."

"Whatever, I'm still waiting to hear an example of the wonders of computer technology."

"OK, well, um, video games. I really love my wrestling video games. They're a lot of fun."

"Video games?" Litrifle says, scowling, "At worst, they train people to obey orders and kill and prepare for war--look at the most popular ones, they are always violent, even your wrestling ones are about beating people up. At best, they distract people from the important issues in the world. Trust me, we were better off without computers. They're just going to evolve into artificial intelligence, and enslave us. In any case, you can't cut and paste love, you can't put goodness on a spreadsheet, can you?"

"No, but I can communicate with wrestling fans in Australia without running up a huge phone bill, so that's like emailing friendship."

The man in the gray hoodie stops by the table and picks up a zine. "What's this?" he says.

"A zine," Litrifle says.

"A zine? They still make those? That's so twentieth century," he says, putting it down and walking away.

"So's Cointelpro, but you still do that, don't you, you douchebag! Give me back my taxes! I'm not paying to be hassled by little government pricks who wouldn't be able to get a job on their own in the free market," Litrifle yells as she stands up, comes around her table, and starts to chase the man in the hoodie through the exhibit hall.

Francine and Jake watch them both disappear through a set of double doors at the end of the hall.

"I'm definitely blogging about this," Jake says, "These people make wrestlers look sane by comparison. At least wrestlers do crazy stuff for money. These people do crazy things for free. And, yes, I do count myself among these crazy people. Sometimes I wonder why I blog. Then I remember why. It's fun. But why do I think it's fun?"

"To blog or not to blog?" Francine says, "I've been thinking of giving up my blog. Creepy stuff like this makes me want to quit."

"Uh, what would you do then?"

"Start a zine. I hope she comes back so she can tell me where she gets her photocopying done so cheaply."

"I think I'll stick with my blog. That's retro enough for 2012."

"Yeah, but it would be kind of fun to be able to set up at a table at next year's conference and have cool stuff like these to sell and trade," Franzine says, holding up an issue of Pammunition.

"If you want to sell something, then how about some deodorant?" Jake says, holding his nose, as a couple of crustpunks walk by, "It seems like there's a need for that around here."

"Oh, Jake," Francine says, "It's just the smell of a body. It's natural . . ."

Her face twists as the smell of the crustpunks hits her nostrils, "It's . . . it's really, really bad. Didn't anyone in here bathe today?"

"C'mon, let's go to one of the zine workshops. Maybe they'll have some rubber cement we can sniff."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.