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October 21, 2011
19:03 • 1 year ago
This may be the longest comment in Internet history. In this Google Docs-produced reply, Jeff Jarvis tears apart, piece-by-piece, a lengthy review Evgeny Morozov wrote of his latest book, “Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live,” a buzz-building article in which Morozov pretty much tears Jarvis apart. “Had Jarvis Written his book as self-parody — as a cunning attack on the narrow-mindedness of new media academics who trade in pronouncements so pompous, ahistorical, and vacuous that even the nastiest of post-modernists appear lucid and sensible in comparison — it would have been a remarkable accomplishment,” Morozov writes. “But alas, he is serious. This is a book that should have stayed a tweet.” Total word count of Morozov’s review? 6,389 words. Total word count of Jarvis’ lengthy rebuttal (which includes Morozov’s article, by the way)? 11,605 words. As a service to our short-form readers, we’d like to cut this down to three sentences: “Guy writes book on sharing stuff. Other guy shares his opinion of the book, at length. Original guy gets in huff, responds at length.”

This may be the longest comment in Internet history. In this Google Docs-produced reply, Jeff Jarvis tears apart, piece-by-piece, a lengthy review Evgeny Morozov wrote of his latest book, “Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live,” a buzz-building article in which Morozov pretty much tears Jarvis apart. “Had Jarvis Written his book as self-parody — as a cunning attack on the narrow-mindedness of new media academics who trade in pronouncements so pompous, ahistorical, and vacuous that even the nastiest of post-modernists appear lucid and sensible in comparison — it would have been a remarkable accomplishment,” Morozov writes. “But alas, he is serious. This is a book that should have stayed a tweet.” Total word count of Morozov’s review? 6,389 words. Total word count of Jarvis’ lengthy rebuttal (which includes Morozov’s article, by the way)? 11,605 words. As a service to our short-form readers, we’d like to cut this down to three sentences: “Guy writes book on sharing stuff. Other guy shares his opinion of the book, at length. Original guy gets in huff, responds at length.”

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