As a relatively early adopter of internet publishing and entrepreneurialism, I've gotten in the habit of noticing when people describe themselves as "the first" or "the only".

Like, I think I was the first person to use the term "personality sites" to describe what were usually referred to as "solo sites" but made "homemade sites/porn" (I feel like I was the first person to use that term, too) with a personable feel and authentic-sounding story not really distinguishable from cookie cutter webmaster- or sponsor-created studio porn, often made with bought content. Would I come out and say I was the first? No. For one thing, because these particularly "firsts" really aren't super marketable the way being, like, the first person to fuck an asteroid might be or whatever. Also, I am aware that being able to recognize a trend or label something with words that haven't been capitalized on yet is not super unique; there are a lot of things people come up with at the same time. Also, it's not like I *invented* the personality site or the homemade porn site. There were at least a couple dozen other people / couples doing the same thing at the time. I think there really was someone who made up the word REALCORE and nailed it down that he sort of owned that word. I can't remember the details so I don't remember if it was actually trademarked or if he just owned the dot com (that to me is what it means to claim an idea or concept or whatever: buy the domain name of something that is a catchy and short enough phrase to be adworthy).

I do remember being pretty resentful and annoyed when Hal & Tassy claimed they were the only couple doing what they only did very briefly when it was exactly what we'd been doing as a couple 24/7 for a long time (okay, probably 2 years, but back then in internet porn years ... that WAS a long time). It wasn't the kind of thing I could really be mad about, though, when if the larger porn industry didn't know about us then we might as well NOT exist.

Still, I saw (I still see) that a lot, where relative newcomers to a niche or internet porn or sex worker rights or whatever think they are the ONLY one, and/or the FIRST doing whatever it is they're doing, in the way that they're doing it. Like, there's a gal who claims to be the only woman with two vaginas, but she's ... not. Cool marketing ploy, but you're not actually the only one. It makes sense, though, and becomes a kind of truth when you brand yourself that way that it increases your rarity and exclusivity, and you BECOME the only one of your kind that is well-known to a certain number of folks. Or if you already have an audience, and you expand into this other territory that doesn't have a front-runner or is just generally not well known, and you expose your existing audience into this new thing you're doing and frame it like you're breaking untrodden ground. Kind of a lazy and/or dick move, but ... oh well. We see this a lot where someone believes that because something is new to them and they had no awareness of its existence, that IT *is* new! That they discovered or created it! When the reality is there is nothing new under the sun, not even in internet porn, especially now.

Anyway ... I am thinking about this again after seeing a book titled The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic. My reaction was kind of like ... really?!?!? I mean ... maybe it's true! It sucks if it's true, but it could very well be true!! 2015 publication date? It's not far-fetched!

Braggadocio is interesting. When to employ it. How often there's a backlash when women employ it, even in minor, low-key ways just to sell their porn or their niche book. It's not like someone exaggerating their qualifications in a run for president or to head an enormous non-profit. My mildly negative reaction upon reading this title: interesting. Food for thought.

I've definitely leaned into some bravado and braggadochio and bombastic bullshittery when writing ad text. I suspect that provoked some discomfort and sneering behind the hands of a few "friends" and colleagues, and made them believe I had too high and weird an opinion of myself. Self-love and confidence are not as well-received as folks pretend they encourage each other (especially women) to be.

But back to the rock critic: Jessica Hopper. I went to the website linked to on her Goodreads profile hoping to see this level of lady bossery reflected on her own site, but it appears to be taken over by casino ads. This happens a lot to artistes and intellectuals: they don't renew their domains and they get bought by squatters, spammers, and shillers. But maybe she actually is just making money with casino ads! I didn't stick around long enough to suss out the source of the current content. It's pretty wild though that someone would invest in taking over a dot org.

More interesting is this info I found in a review of the book, explaining the spirit of the title:

The title of Pitchfork senior editor Jessica Hopper's "The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic" sums up why this particular book is important. Hopper acknowledges in her opening note that this self-reflexive and confrontational name is "about planting a flag" and offers nods to her forebears, while suggesting that her readers consider why there haven't been more. "There's Ellen Willis' 'Beginning to See the Light,'" she writes, "though it wasn't all music writing, and then her posthumous collection that was," and she mentions "Lillian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia" from 1969 and Caroline Coon's "1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion" before adding, "We should be able to list a few dozen more — but those books don't exist. Yet."

One of the problems with all of this is how many of us got in on the cusp of traditional publishing becoming almost obsolete as an indicator of someone's credibility. There are probably a bajillion blogs and youtube channels and substacks and patreons where women casually or for money do at least pretty entertaining hack jobs covering and critiquing "rock" music (is this a recognized and relevant genre anymore or is it completely diluted, amorphous, and washed out at this point?). I think that's a disappointment for many Gen X and Gen X adjacent people: it's no longer clear when anyone has broken ground because the fields are flooded with amateurs and pro-ams who broke barriers and have been doing shit in relatively-hidden pockets of the internet for decades, for their little handfuls of fans.

So where does this leave us with FIRSTs and ONLYs? If someone says they're the only one in a forest and nobody is there to challenge them, ARE THEY? Is it okay to put THE FIRST _ on your linkedin profile or site description without verifying it? Who really cares anyway? It's hard enough to prove a negative: how many surfers or potential clickers and buyers and idle readers are going to try to find someone to prove that wrong?

I looked up her site on the wayback machine. In a font almost exactly like the one I use here for WebWhore101, her front page says her name, and in bigger letters author. director. producer.

Books, documentary, podcast. Editorial work, talks, workshops.

Now her site is on at her-rock-star-name.work

The first author director producer to collect her wrock critiques in a book has it all up for you to admire on her DOT WORK site, you guys.

We may have been the "first" - possibly "the only" for some time - but we definitely won't be the last. Rising and falling, like asteroids fucking us up good in the capacious assholes of our own fertile, stretchy imaginations. Shooting out the other side leaving only a big charred hole: nothing even vaguely resembling us left over to impress anyone for posterity.