Word

Fuller’s piece resonated with me in large part because it addressed the visual layout, “innocuous” aesthetics, and semiotics behind the construction of the most popular word processor. Ever since Windows 95, I have felt somewhat imprisoned by Microsoft Word’s asceticism (proclaiming, “Here is the whitest page and the most imposing emptiness of a flat background, all bathed in the dead glow of the monitor”), as though its end is to discipline and assimilate me into a “default” writing environment, as well as its simultaneous barrage of icons, options, sounds, and that “Mr. Paperclip” jerk, all always present even if not all on-screen (proclaiming, “Here we are, the tools you never knew you needed, so that you can make countless superfluous transformations to your boring text”). What are the immediate consequences of this? For one, an unpleasant environment (as though flatland alone isn’t bad enough). Furthermore, MSWord’s layout relegates the typed text to the status of “just another series of images on the screen,” as does the fact that the open document is just another “window.” Additionally, the layout forces the user/writer to adapt her mode of working to suit comfortably the processor’s static form. This directly hyperrealizes the act of writing itself. Ultimately, these problems trouble the way one conceives of and approaches writing on a computer.

Of course, functions like deletion or copy/paste make things easier to the user. They undoubtedly help to put forth a new kind of writing consciousness different from the one effected by the paper & pen model. They have rewritten the act of writing. I don’t think, however, that this necessarily results in better or faster writing. Even here, advantages are questionable and certainly not revolutionizing.

To directly relate this to Fuller’s piece (the text is ironically situated in a grey mass that levels it with the superfluous surrounding icons and options [in this case links screaming “HotSpot—Leipzig”] even more obviously than MSWord does), Fuller reflects the personal qualms I mentioned by noting, for example, that Microsoft “overcompensates… rather than tries to develop [MSWord’s] potential” (6). Although he is referencing an outdated version here, the newer versions are just as liable for this kind of criticism.