I Feel Validated by Jolie O'Dell's SxSW Experience

: Image by ManilaRyce via Flickr

It warms my cold, dry, wrinkled heart to know I have left a legacy people can actually use. That's right, my blog. I may not have a fancy book deal. I may spew meaningless parables to my children in hopes they one day make enough money to place me in one of those nicer homes they can feel good about when ignoring me. I may even show up at local networking events hoping to corner hapless victims into my pseudo-political theological philosophical mouth frothing. But at least I'm one of the few people in the world with a blog. That makes me a journalist. And with great power comes great something or other.

As Jolie O'Dell apparently witnessed firsthand at SxSW (See Why SXSW Sucks), people read my advice and completely ran with it: Listicle: How To Fit In at Big Meetups. Not only am I proud to have inspired so many douches, I am proud to have not been there. I feel like Kim Jong Il after he fires a few missiles, threatens whole world, and then hides in his palace to watch musicals.

According to Jolie's account at SxSW, she witnessed firsthand the power of my bulleted lists:

And non-technical people aren’t here to learn; they’re here for self-congratulation and mutual masturbation. People I’ve never heard of are referring to themselves as Twitter celebrities and generally making me ill. The real “celebrities” are dodging and evading these shallow douchebags, showing up at and slipping away from one official party after another to convene in a more refined, unofficial setting – only to find swarms of douchebags showing up an hour or so after the location is made known.

This is what it's all about, people. I mean people is what it's all about. Getting together and sharing their worst, showing off the dickery that has become modern culture. Historically, armies would charge through towns and lay them to waste, use up their resources, and leave nothing behind but carcasses and feces. Isn't it comforting to know we can still do it?