If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, imitating Wired is the
sincerest form of having fun, because Wired is a fun magazine. But
fun or not, what they've been doing is something to pay attention to,
if you're interested in information technology, contemporary
education, or modern culture. One tribute to the mark Wired's made
is that it has received far more than a magazine's fair share of rants
and raves.
A sample rave: "While dino-zines like The New Yorker and Esquire
strain to reinvent their formulas, and trade rags like PC Computing
and PC Magazine tirelessly analyze products, the dizzyingly designed
Wired is realizing an original-for-the-1990s concept: that the
computer revoluation may be a human revolution, that technology is
lifestyle, that ideals like equality have enormous potential in the
virtual world online." (Boston Globe)
A sample rant: "This worthy premise for a magazine has been spoiled
by Wired's fevered, adolescent consumerism, its proud display of
empty thoughts from a parade of smoke-shoveling celebrity pundits,
its smug disengagement from the thorny problems facing the
postindustrial societies and, most annoyingly, by its over-the-top
narcissism. If this is the revolution, do we really want to be part of
it?" (Gary Chapman, in The New Republic).
Well, we decided that Wired is sufficiently interesting as a cultural
artifact and cultural phenomenon to invite some brand new rants
and raves, now presented to you in the form of six new critiques
from authors with six divergent perspectives, right and left, up and
down, ranting and raving.
As an undergraduate I took a year-long seminar (in 16th century
English literature, of all things) with Marshall McLuhan, Wired's
"patron saint." I'd love to know what McLuhan would have thought
of Wired. In spite of the status as a "wired" visionary, he was a
literary man, a "prober," a reporter, an anthropologist; he was no
Timothy Leary and no cheerleader. I'm really not convinced he
would have "approved" of Wired, but I'm sure he'd have regarded it
as inevitable, inimitable, and fun to think about it.
That's what we think, too. It's inimitable, but we've had fun trying.
Our next issue: back to normal.
John Gehl is editor & publisher of Educom Review. He may be reached at [email protected]
� 1995 Educom.