from Fantasy and Science Fiction

…

Patting his back, I said, “There, there, Cory, surely you didn’t expect anyone to be truly astonished by this old ragbag assortment of clippings and ephemera. It’s not like the old days, when you could effortlessly ride the bleeding digital edge of culture, shining your spotlight on weird niches before anyone else could get there.”

…

“You’ll just have to face facts, Cory. You bloggers were addicts. The medium was almost as important to you as the content. The technological glitz, the bells and whistles — I know it was hard to kick it all cold turkey. But if your content is strong, you can make the transition. Things will just be a little different. But look what Bruce Sterling and the cyberpunks accomplished, without the Internet. After all, even Boing Boing started back then as a fanzine — ”

“I was fourteen years old in 1985! I never even saw a paper copy of Cheap Truth! That’s prehistoric! I can’t go back! It’s pure torture! It’s unfair! It sucks! The human wreckage from the Internet collapse is beyond calculation. Xeni, Mark, David, my good buddies — they’re all swilling this excellent mutant agave tequila or radioactive Chernobyl vodka just to blunt the pain.”

of course