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Although I agree with comments that this particular article meanders and could have been more focused, what stunned me was not the idea presented by the article
by rpiguy 9y ago
Although I agree with comments that this particular article meanders and could have been more focused, what stunned me was not the idea presented by the article, but how much more verbose and lengthy articles like this were 25 years ago.
I am all for brevity and often skip to the TL;DR summary of long posts, but sometimes I think we have taken brevity too far. Not all ideas can be distilled into PowerPoint bullets.
- hellofunk 9y agoI don't know... you can still find a lot of writing like this today. It just doesn't usually make its way to a viral spread. Lots of long-form articles exist that go on and on and on.
- ameister14 9y agoI don't think the New Republic or Current Affairs have changed massively in terms of the verbosity of their articles.
- rpiguy 9y agoFair point. If the New Republic still publishes articles this long perhaps they feel shorter because the language is less dense? Maybe it is just my perception then based on how the writing style has changed.
- Sargos 9y agoThere are still articles like this. Time and Newsweek regularly have 10+ page articles that go in depth. I don't think much has changed. You might just be looking at different kinds of sources now.
- digi_owl 9y agoPowerpoint is a different kind of hell. I think the rise of brevity comes out of the move from paper to screen for reading. where before we had a defined page, with defined columns of text to read, and thus felt a kind of progress as our eyes scanned up and down each column and page, now we only have a single long column of text. And our eyes only wander the height of the screen at best, repeatedly. I have tested various browser extensions aimed at paginating longer articles, and i have found myself enjoying the experience more.
- TwelveNights 9y agoThe total amount of verbosity honestly felt like the author was trying to superficially pad the article... It's an interesting topic, but I couldn't bear to read it any more. I had to check the comments to see if anyone else was put off by the writing style.