If you missed my Diary last night, you're among the vast majority. Hope the below serves as a summary of what it said.
In retrospect, it was like an experiment. It WAS an experiment, though I hardly knew it at the time. When I posted one of my rare Diaries, I gave it a - slightly - misleading title just to draw readers. Sure enough, I sowed what I had reaped - a slew (if 15 comments minus the 2 that were my own can be called a "slew") of comments all of which missed the point.
That's not ironic. That's appropriate.
It wasn't supposed to be about Archie. Lord knows it wasn't about Coulter. Though it compared the two, it was about - forgive my using the term for the umpteenth time - RHETORICAL DEVICES: conflation, convoluted logic, projection, of which the fictional character Bunker portrayed by the brilliant liberal O'Connor was guilty in a hilarious way, and Coulter in an insidious way.
My Diary fail to convey that, at least if the feedback represents a true measure, which I believe that it does. When one poster chastised me (seriously or tongue-in-cheek, I can't tell) for yet another Coulter Diary, I responded that, in fact, it wasn't about Coulter; she was merely tangential to the subject. Yet the Bunker vs. Coulter remarks continued (if, by "continued," you can count a paltry two or three additional posts). No, I finally chimed in, in my second and last post, where I apologized for apparently leading the discussion astray by virtue of my title, though at this point I must wonder whether anybody actually read the content, as opposed to skimmed it (as I sometimes skim others' Diaries because they're so lengthy) in which case the guilt extends to the reader as well. You see Archie at the top. You see Coulter (actually you don't see Coulter; she's only in the title), you see her vile assertions at the bottom. Voila: ignore the definitions and examples of the way they twist arguments and focus on the contrast between them instead.
Coulter's worse than Archie. Well, of course she is. The essay wasn't about that. Yet after I explained that a few people replied to a few other people, while no one read to the bottom where I tried to set the record straight. At least if I can take the fact that no one replied to that post to mean that. At least by the time the Diary slid into the obscurity of the next page.
But here's the message. (No, not all of the above, which is merely tangential.) DKos is skewed young. Quite young, from my perspective. As a baby-boomer on the older side of that 18-year constituency, I see it constantly. While I remember - no, not before its household proliferation - but black-and-white TV, many if not most of this website's readers strain to remember no computers, no Internet equaling the prevalence of cable TV. (As they strain to remember, I strain to relate.) And it occurs to me that taking these innovations for granted, in a way I never can, is an invitation to, well, abusing it. As in posting silly comments. As in posting meaningless Diaries (of which, for different reasons, this may be one). As in, in contrast to the very useful "Diary Rescue" feature, the "top 10 comments of the day" which is so far beyond the purpose of DKos, so many generations removed... I suppose it now depends on whether snark is funny or just so much debris clogging the cogs in the lumbering wheel.
If you've gotten this far, here's your reward. I'm almost done. Done with this entry, done with a great deal of my participation here. It's been noted many times over that Kos is but the proprietor of these premises; he certainly doesn't monitor them, and it shows. I have no idea - scratch that, I have no way of knowing for sure - how many here are my age cohorts. Occasionally someone specifies, and less occasionally it fits my demographic. Kos himself is a kid and I wish I had his energy at his age let alone now. I wish I had your energy. Use it wisely. Discriminate, in the positive sense of the word. Skewering Brooks, Coulter (without exceeding the quota), Lieberman, is more than fun. It's exhilarating. The graphics are even funnier. I've just got to figure out how to jump over the "Duh" and "Hah" one-word stuff, and the Diaries which amount to little more, which takes as much practice as it would to employ self-discipline.
Or don't subscribe to less is more. What I find sophomoric or juvenile is only my perception, a function not only of my age but of my mindset. Yesterday I posted - deliberately - during low traffic hours. It stayed on the front page longer; the potential audience was smaller. Today, with any luck, it will sink into oblivion that much sooner and still no one will read it. I truly hope to garner zero comments and for heaven's sake no recommendations or rescues.