LURKER AMNESTY WEEK 2012 IS UPON US!

Just because I like to have a sense of who exactly I'm writing for—especially in this age of reading material in one place and commenting on it elsewhere—I'm declaring  what began this morning at 12:01 a.m. to be LURKER AMNESTY WEEK 2012!

If you're reading this and comment all the time, skip the rest of this post. (Which isn't most of you anymore. Where have y'all gone, my regulars of yore?)

If you're reading this and have never commented, feel free to leave a comment. (And an explanation of why you've never commented, if you'd like. Lately I get the sense it's because no one else is commenting, so it'd seem strange to break the silence by commenting.)

If you're reading this and have never commented and would rather not comment, feel free to send me an email at allmynamessquishedtogether at gmail dot com. Or via Facebook, where I can be found by unsquishing allmynamessquishedtogether.

If you're reading this and have never commented and would rather not comment and don't do email, then I'm not even sure how you're reading this, but feel free to contact me via whatever medium is valued by your people. (I hear ravens are in this year.)

You need not use your real name or even your regular pseudonym, but please do give a sense of who you are, how you got here and why you've stayed, so that I might make this place more hospitable to good folk like you.

You never know, I might be inclined to TAKE REQUESTS if I knew who wanted me write about what around here.

Comments

[Adam Roberts]

"Where have y'all gone, my regulars of yore?" Popped out to make a cup of tea and follow England's progress through Euro 2012. That's all over now, obviously.

[SEK]

You should have plenty of time to comment now. At least it didn't come down to penalties again ... I kid, I kid.

[TIMING, BROTHER, TIMING]

Asking us to de-lurk after you've given us two years of "Best of" posts just isn't fair. I'm only de-lurking here long enough to complain that I can't thank you properly for all this free content because I've still got so much of it to read.

[James South]

Long time reader--just not much of a commenter. I especially enjoy the posts on graphic novels and TV shows, but ultimately, just enjoy the wit and style on display.

[Jill Lepore]

I don't know how I missed THE GREAT CARAVAGGIO HUNT! the first time through, so I'm going to de-lurk and offer my thanks for the all-capping and bolding of that link. Reminded me of why I started coming here in the first place, even if I can't exactly remember why.

[CC instead of TT]

As my name implies, I think we're in the same boat. It's just nice to see that someone in our position can remain motivated enough to real intellectual labor outside the classroom or, fuck it, even have the energy to be funny. Keep it up, for those of us who can't.

[Vance Maverick]

Wait, is that the real Jill Lepore? And the real Timing, Brother, Timing? Heady company we keep here in our lurking.

(Email address will not be displayed with the comment. -- implying it will be displayed in some other connection....)

[Sam Grace]

Hi, I heard about your blog from a fellow anthropology grad student who likes the internets and put you in my Google Reader, where I stay comfortably ensconced, never commenting on anything. I like your blog and read it more than I read almost any other text-based feeds.

[HP]

Came for the office sex, stayed for the visual rhetoric.

[Chris]

I'm just not much of a commenter. I came over here from Alyssa Rosenberg, and love the visual rhetoric posts!

[human]

Hi!

[Martin McCallion]

I don't quite remember how I got here. Followed a link from somewhere, obviously; probably to the one with the couple shagging in your office. Stayed because of many other interesting posts.

HP, above, put that much more succinctly.

[greg]

I came some time ago,
and then I left.
I came back not long ago.
Mad Men posts are nice.
Other writings are also deft.
Hooray for SEK on the Internets!
Hooray for SEK on the Internets!
Hooray!

[Spankminister]

Computer Engineer with a major in Japanese Lit. who sometimes writes about media issues in comics and video games who visits this blog because I am effectively film crit. illiterate and like the visual rhetoric breakdowns. Plus, it's very accessible to me since you use popular examples that are fresh in my mind like Batman and Mad Men-- I don't have to go watch a movie I'd hate just to observe what it's doing technically.

[Avelino]

Usually over at LGM, though I rarely comment there as well. I maintain a blog for a living, so I like to leave all the interaction behind and just read when it's my down time. I've shared all your Doctor Who posts with my GF, your MadMen posts with my mom, and everything in the series with my friend attending film school. Thanks for all you do.

[Linda]

Communication prof with an academic background in English and cultural studies. You've been in my RSS feed for quite awhile, but I very rarely speak up in the blogosphere. I enjoy your posts, the material you cover, and your snarky persona. :)

[Natilo Paennim]

Commenting to comment, although I already said hi on FB. Via Unfogged, of course. Really need to get over here more often. I'm not sure what aspect I like best. Some of your very short posts are among the best very short posts I've read. Sigh. Better get back to work.

[Brandt]

General nerd nerding along my nerdy-way. I don't comment because I am terrified of public ridicule. Also because I figure the signal to noise ratio is bad enough without me.

[Rich Puchalsky]

I'm still reading, though I suppose that I've become a lurker... in part (as I think I mentioned to Adam once), blog-commenting is becoming one of those why-do-I-do-this things (along with everything else), in part it's that the part of the blogosphere that I read took a big hit for reasons that I'd get into more if I still wrote lots of blog comments, but might be described as ambitions adjusting to circumstances...

In part, though, it's that the core content here is more didactic now. The visual rhetoric posts seem fine, insofar as I understand them (I know very little about film, more about TV and comic books), but I'm just not that interested in the techniques of how artists achieve effects. Adam once did a review of the Iron Man movie that talked about how it was a fantasy about invulnerability producing or enabling morality, while actually it was our vulnerability that allows human morality. It's that kind of criticism about meaning that I'm more interested in, and the posts here, while well-designed to do what they do, don't naturally lead to that.

Also, the politics ... about the end of the first year of Obama's presidency, the whole online right-winger mocking thing began to look very different, much more about enabling a group of liberal-to-left people to hold positions against their ideals now that there was an actual chance of achieving those ideals than the actual mocking of power in power. Your intent clearly has and had nothing to do with that, but the prevailing atmosphere can't help but affect how your posts are read.

[HP]

So, while we're on the subject (that is, lurkers seem to like visual rhetoric), if you felt like breaking down latter 20th c. Italian genre film directors, I'd love to see your take on Mario Bava or early Dario Argento. There's no shortage of fanboys/girls writing online about these films, but there's very little informed criticism outside the usual High Modernist cinephile sites, and they're very old-fashioned in their approach. Between Bava's Operazione: Paura and Argento's Suspiria, there's enough to keep a critical viewer occupied for a lifetime.