Everything Bad Is Good For You

I'm finishing up Steven Johnson's killer book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, and loving it.

He says something interesting about reality TV. It stuck with me. For all that's bad about it, it has that one moment where someone gets pushed out of the tribe in Survivor or fired in The Apprentice where SOMETHING REAL HAPPENS. You get to (perversely, as he says) see real emotion where they cry or choke up or get sad or something ... anything REAL.

He calls it a "this is actually happening" moment and says it's compelling because something real in real-time almost never happens on TV anymore.

I think there is an aspect of blogging that is all about "this is actually happening" which makes it very appealing.

You know I'm a real person. You know I'm really writing this at 4:43 on Tuesday afternoon, after riding my bike today. There's something totally strange but great about that.