This Thing You Are Reading Is Now Called A Betamax

My friend Ben Stanton has just started something that unfortunately bears a name that makes him want to vomit. It's the b-word. No, not those that Snoop Dogg has in the living room getting it on (and they won't leave 'til six in the moan-nin'). Still can't guess? Fine, I'll say write it. That doesn't mean I have to like it. Blog. The word is blog. Ben is right: it's quite repugnant. It sounds like the kind of thing you should flush down a dark hole or bury in the sand so no one will ever have to see it.

I have always found this particular b-word loathsome, as has Maddox, and he's always right. I'm glad Ben has added his two cents to the matter, since it made realize something. We are not passive spectators in this world of b-words that we call an i-word. There's no good reason that putting words on a screen so that other people with other screens can read those very same words should have to be referred to as the b-word. Or at least not that b-word. We can think of our very own b-word if we want. We have the power! Or at least I think we do. And being an American, I'm just going to assume we do and if not then the U.N. can write a resolution of condemnation that no one will know or care about.

Here's my humble proposal. We pick a new b-word. Something better than bleching. Bleching is worse than blogging, so that's out for starters. Belching might be somewhat accurate, but it's not much of an improvement except in its greater honesty. Bowling is already something else that people do (usually right after saying "Fuck it, man") so that won't work. Beeping is too binary. Booping is just silly.

Wait. I've got it. Let's just repurpose an old school technological word from the 1980s that has since fallen into disuse. It will be recycling neologisms, so it will be good for the linguistic ecosystem on which we all depend for nearly all our precious communication. It will have the ring of instant nostalgia that VH1 has taught us all to love. Most of all, it won't be that gross word "blogging." It will be the perfect b-word.

It will be betamaxing. That's right, betamaxing. You know what I'm doing right now? Betamaxing. What does that make me? A betamaxer. And what are you reading? A betamax.

Unless you can think of something better. In which case, I'm all ears eyes.

P.S. - Seriously though, you have to admit that betamaxing is an elegant replacement. What better way to commemorate a dead technology, one that Sony thought would dominate the marketplace but ended up getting ignored in favor of VHS (which is also a dead technology but somehow couldn't replace the word blog). It has the added advantage of sounding a bit like masturbating, which let's face is what blogging really is.