My favorite blog of all time is Humans of a New York (HONY): http://www.humansofnewyork.com.
What started as photographer Brandon Stanton's minor project in 2010 burgeoned into a social media and philanthropic sensation that's profiled millions of ordinary New Yorkers and others around the world, and championed many charitable causes to great success.
What Stanton has been able to accomplish simply by telling the world the true life stories of ordinary strangers is simply extraordinary.
That's where I come in.
Oh, come on. You didn't ACTUALLY think I was going to write a blog post devoid of my signature narcissistic self-reflection and analysis, did you?
Of course not.
My eponymous post on alumni magazine envy brought to mind yet another form of envy: blog envy. Also known as "blenvy." I have blenvy with several blogs and websites: The Mudflats, HONY, dListed, The Oatmeal, and Jezebel, to name just a few.
But like everything else enjoyable in my life, I can't just enjoy it in any sort of pure, unadulterated way without spinning into a shame spiral of self-loathing that goes something like this:
... What am I doing wasting my time writing this stupid blog?
... Oh look, only 29 people read that post. I knew that one was a stupid idea.
... God I am SUCH a narcissist. See?! Even the thought itself is proof of its truth! And so is the writing of this sentence.
... I will never do anything useful for anyone with this blog or otherwise. I will never do in a million years what Brandon Stanton did in the last five minutes, literally ...
... When the zombie apocalypse comes, I am going DOWN, hard, and rightfully so.
... I don't know how to do anything useful. I have never done a single useful thing in my entire life ...
... What am I gonna do? Live blog the zombie apocalypse? Idiot ...
... This is how my children will remember me...depressed and in bed and tapping away my sorrows into an iPhone ...
... Thanks a lot, Steve Jobs. Oh who am I kidding? It's not Steve's fault. It's MY fault!
... I am the worst mother ever. I can't believe social services hasn't come for my children.
... God ... What the fuck is WRONG with me? Will I ever accomplish anything worthwhile?
... Katy Perry exists and is rich and famous. What kind of world do we live in? She put exploding ice cream cones on her tits in a video for fuck's sake...
... Wait ... Do I need to turn my tits into exploding ice cream cones?
... Wow. I might hate myself even more than I hate Tom Brady's chin dimple and the use of my tax dollars to fly Air Force planes over a football game ...
... Is that even possible? If it is, I might as well just jump into the bathtub with a hair dryer right now ...
... Where did I put that hair dryer anyway? I haven't used that piece of shit in forever ...
... Should I eat a chicken wing? Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes ...
