I believe it was Christmas of ’93. My father and his friend were really building up the importance of my Christmas gift. What could it be? A new bike? A Nintendo?
“It’s the World,” his friend said.
A vacation? A deluxe computer version of “Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?”
When I found out it was the Internet, along with a personal e-mail account, my reaction could be summed up with a half-shrug and an “eh?”
The World Wide Web has been good to me over the years: Online chess matches, that frog Web site that was really cool, Yahoo! chat rooms and helping me turn procrastination into an art form. I have learned a lot along the way, from when the older boys corrupted my innocent mind by showing me people have sex with animals (zoosex.com), to my higher education years, where the information super-highway taught me that bestiality, or zoophilia, dates back to prehistoric men and “it was often incorporated into religious rituals.” (thank you, Wikipedia.com)
I obtained an attitude from the start, however, that the Internet destroys valuable social and cultural traditions. Despite this, it has slowly broken me down to the point that it’s part of daily life. But when Time Magazine honored me – and you, and the near 300 million other Americans – as Person of the Year in December, I once again felt something was not right. The magazine said we are “seizing the reins of the global media” and “beating the pros at their own game.” Time praised Internet bloggers, YouTube contributors and all the MySpace sheep, skanks and sluts for their part in the “revolution.” If you buy into this claptrap, take note: you can’t beat the pros.
The absurdity of Time’s announcement is laid out in an article by Douglas Rushkoff in the latest issue of Discover magazine. While YouTube is a fresh means of entertainment, “we’re still glued to a tube, watching mostly crap,” and though blogs give the Average Joe a political voice to be heard, “most political discussions are so inane they make cable news shouting matches look intelligent.” Furthermore, corporate America (the pros) has set it so we (the Joes) dish out personal information for their benefit. The content in our Gmail accounts, our e-mail, determine what ads are displayed on our screen, Rushkoff said, and personal and social interests, preferences and trends are being collected by iTunes, MySpace and Second Life. “Each and every keystroke becomes part of our consumer profile; every attempt at self-expression is reduced to a brand preference.”
Information on Web 2.0 is following the same ragtag path as communication and entertainment. Wikipedia is a great idea to begin with – an educational database written and edited by the people. Of course, a few flaws and miscues creep in, but overall it’s a good source of info on nearly everything. But now there is Conservapedia, which lists 36 reasons why Wikipedia is “six times more liberal than the American public.” Or perhaps you’d prefer Uncyclopedia, “the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” This trend of pedias will likely continue until they all become competing cesspools of lies owned by large corporations – kinda like a Republican primary race.
But in the end, it’s all relative. I can hiss and scowl as much as I want, but you will still find me on the Web most days. I stay away from MySpace and blogs, but you can find me everywhere else. This week alone, I’ve downloaded a Ry Cooder album in minutes, caught up with some old and new friends via Facebook and was even featured in a YouTube video, river surfing the McKenzie River with Eli Mack of E&J’s Mos Faded Barbershop. So I guess the Internet can be pretty cool. Thanks, Dad.
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