This year, and I mean This Year, a lot of social media companies, unhappy with merely not capsizing and deflating and disappearing, are going through the unprecendented step of making themselves nuisances. From disenfranchising userbases to creating nonsense features that do nothing, to removing the publically-visible metrics that made their platforms interesting (before algorithms built digital cages so impenetrable that you need an anonymous browser to get anything useful out of them), to making themselves User Only Content, and more—the lions of yesteryear are shittier than ever, and less likely than ever to be replaced with better platforms. Let's face it: all your faved social media channels are going to hell.
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
8/14/13
How Long Till Facebook Is Irrelevant: The Answer May Surprise You
Facebook's story is pretty fun to tell. Before 2006 (or somewhere around there) you couldn't sign up for Facebook without a university email address. That ended. Then the media caught on, a while later the floodgates opened, and anyone was let in at a cost to exclusivity which might have kept the social media service relevant into 2010. However, things happened as they did, because the Kings of Facebook or whatever needed a way to turn a relatively hyped, useless, hackneyed service into a dividend-paying money-printing machine. That's why your little brother, your dad, and your aunt are all Facebook Friends with you.
Anyways, people used to freely put up pictures of themselves doing drugs, copulating, as well as excreting on and variously vandalizing private property, because nobody on the service was square enough to be A) an uncool employer or B) a rat fink. Nudity was the only thing out of bounds, but nobody needed the internet for that. It was the wild west, populated by stupid university students. That phase didn't last long, but it was truly a hopeful one. It's hard to understand at this point in time because nobody does it anymore. Even Facebook's dumbest, least-University-educated users manage to post mostly PG-Employment level material. It was generally the exhibitionists and show-offs who couldn't keep their borderline activities in private memory, which is fine, because they're the same people for whom nothing is ever good enough.
Then, with the advent of a growing user base, employers took full advantage of lax privacy settings to investigate their employees and, if the optics were wrong, fire them. Facebook made some noises about privacy settings (which advertisers, PRISM et al. overrule anyway) and most people realized that, with privacy settings set properly, and a non-compromising profile picture, they wouldn't be able to get bagged. Even more people realized that, as always, nobody cares and nobody needs to know anything, and why they were on Facebook is anyone's guess. Many are still there. With employers and other nosy squares using Facebook to essentially spy on people the end had begun, and the important phase had ended.
With children, parents, nosy bosses, moralists, the uneducated, and all manner of riff-raff inhabiting Facebook, the popularity exploded and it became the thing everyone knew about (including worthless 'social media experts' on TV). It was like Twitter, briefly, but maybe even hotter. By now, nearly every Western person between the ages of 20 and 35 has a majority of friends and contacts on Facebook, with 'friends' numbering far in excess of 150. Of course, the great upsurge in popularity also meant increased scrutiny. Many people thought it was incredibly low of employers to spy on and then fire or punish employees because they were pictured drinking a beer. I agree completely. If you want to spy on an employee, check their Linked In account, because Linked In is designed for squares with no concept of the separation of life and work.
Most of the best criticism of Facebook revolved around its user base and effect on users. If you have an account, you already know. People broadcast their dimwitted political stances, their gullibility, pictures of food, and way too much information. Users also tend to only upload content that reflects positively on them and their lifestyle, making Facebook an echo chamber and also a bizarre cycle of envy and envy-prompting. Certain people, putting too much stock in their internet friendship machine, can see the smiling photographs, the tans, the significant others and the happiness of others and become incredibly lonely, sad, isolated, and even more deluded. So it can be said that the service caters first and foremost not to narcissists, but to the self-centered and potentially to the sociopath as well. In essence it can be claimed that Facebook is unhealthy, perhaps moreso than the internet.
Hell, I have not even made mention of the inherent privacy problems which provided privacy options do not solve. In essence, by ever existing on Facebook you are already compromised and every detail you edit or add thereafter goes into the vortex. The police can see everything you've ever said without your knowledge. So can any government, entity, or corporation with the stature or power to make Facebook cooperate. Not to mention anyone with a certain level of know-how can probably have that stuff you willingly shared about yourself. The craziest part is how the service has tapped into the (unconscious) human desire to share and self-promote... the disburdening is done willingly so it's not even entrapment. It's just exploitation. The old crusty man in my mind wants to say it's the fault of the user for being appallingly stupid, but the angry young man wants to blame Facebook, Inc. for just about every misery and betrayal they have wrought.
'Facebook isn't an echo chamber, and echo chamber is a nebulous term used by out-of-date critics to describe viral and meme-based behaviour', you say. I disagree, and urge you to shut up and stop being an apologist: Facebook often functions as an echo chamber devoid of consciousness or critical thought. For every stupid food picture, statement of outrage, birthday wish, and TMI infodump, there are a dozen re-shared memes, propaganda, or internet links. It's an echo chamber that shows you just what your acquaintances are wasting their time with, and invites you to also read top tens, read unsourced and biased articles, look for cute pics, and post shallow, heart-on-sleeve political and social rhetoric. Yeah, that shit's pretty awful, and in this writer's humble opinion, far worse than the self-promotion and the mindless sharing of private moments with no real purpose.
Facebook is already irrelevant: savvy people know this, hip people know this, even tweens know this. I suspect that its last year of relevance was 2010. At this point users see it as either 'Facebook!' or 'depressing friend directory', and increasingly, not even the gullible youth are excited about Facebook anymore. Some even use Twitter to engage in such discussions as #noneofmyfriendsonfacebook and to broadcast that they're getting out of the Facebook game. With the userbase growing older, lamer, and reposting more and more shitty content from the internet, and generally doing nothing important, it is no surprise that hardly anyone considers an account a meaningful or exciting thing, except for people who are promoting themselves, their business, or their art. In the end Facebook will only be useful for them, but its complete irrelevance means that there will be no further scandal because the user base is complacent and the service fulfills its duty quite well.
With a stable share of users and corporate status, it is unlikely that Facebook will disappear in less than five years. Ff a better service steals its users it may dwindle, but in Web 2.0 and beyond, computer/internet-literate users are too insignificant a group. The odds of a better service emerging are also low, since Facebook is part of the establishment and can likely take infringing parties to court and bankrupt them even with frivolous litigation. Facebook itself isn't novel enough anymore to create 'addicts' in the 2006-era sense: remaining power users are generally students, stay-at-home-parents, or retirees. With every baby picture, family portrait, and unnecessary political diatribe, the service makes itself less remarkable and more profitable... with every deleted user account, Facebook continues to hold private data in digital escrow, as if preparing for a blackmail war... with every day, as it fades into irrelevance far away from the beating heart of the internet, Facebook becomes more of a fact of the internet, here to stay and inflict social suffering on untold thousands.
Anyways, people used to freely put up pictures of themselves doing drugs, copulating, as well as excreting on and variously vandalizing private property, because nobody on the service was square enough to be A) an uncool employer or B) a rat fink. Nudity was the only thing out of bounds, but nobody needed the internet for that. It was the wild west, populated by stupid university students. That phase didn't last long, but it was truly a hopeful one. It's hard to understand at this point in time because nobody does it anymore. Even Facebook's dumbest, least-University-educated users manage to post mostly PG-Employment level material. It was generally the exhibitionists and show-offs who couldn't keep their borderline activities in private memory, which is fine, because they're the same people for whom nothing is ever good enough.
Then, with the advent of a growing user base, employers took full advantage of lax privacy settings to investigate their employees and, if the optics were wrong, fire them. Facebook made some noises about privacy settings (which advertisers, PRISM et al. overrule anyway) and most people realized that, with privacy settings set properly, and a non-compromising profile picture, they wouldn't be able to get bagged. Even more people realized that, as always, nobody cares and nobody needs to know anything, and why they were on Facebook is anyone's guess. Many are still there. With employers and other nosy squares using Facebook to essentially spy on people the end had begun, and the important phase had ended.
With children, parents, nosy bosses, moralists, the uneducated, and all manner of riff-raff inhabiting Facebook, the popularity exploded and it became the thing everyone knew about (including worthless 'social media experts' on TV). It was like Twitter, briefly, but maybe even hotter. By now, nearly every Western person between the ages of 20 and 35 has a majority of friends and contacts on Facebook, with 'friends' numbering far in excess of 150. Of course, the great upsurge in popularity also meant increased scrutiny. Many people thought it was incredibly low of employers to spy on and then fire or punish employees because they were pictured drinking a beer. I agree completely. If you want to spy on an employee, check their Linked In account, because Linked In is designed for squares with no concept of the separation of life and work.
Most of the best criticism of Facebook revolved around its user base and effect on users. If you have an account, you already know. People broadcast their dimwitted political stances, their gullibility, pictures of food, and way too much information. Users also tend to only upload content that reflects positively on them and their lifestyle, making Facebook an echo chamber and also a bizarre cycle of envy and envy-prompting. Certain people, putting too much stock in their internet friendship machine, can see the smiling photographs, the tans, the significant others and the happiness of others and become incredibly lonely, sad, isolated, and even more deluded. So it can be said that the service caters first and foremost not to narcissists, but to the self-centered and potentially to the sociopath as well. In essence it can be claimed that Facebook is unhealthy, perhaps moreso than the internet.
Hell, I have not even made mention of the inherent privacy problems which provided privacy options do not solve. In essence, by ever existing on Facebook you are already compromised and every detail you edit or add thereafter goes into the vortex. The police can see everything you've ever said without your knowledge. So can any government, entity, or corporation with the stature or power to make Facebook cooperate. Not to mention anyone with a certain level of know-how can probably have that stuff you willingly shared about yourself. The craziest part is how the service has tapped into the (unconscious) human desire to share and self-promote... the disburdening is done willingly so it's not even entrapment. It's just exploitation. The old crusty man in my mind wants to say it's the fault of the user for being appallingly stupid, but the angry young man wants to blame Facebook, Inc. for just about every misery and betrayal they have wrought.
'Facebook isn't an echo chamber, and echo chamber is a nebulous term used by out-of-date critics to describe viral and meme-based behaviour', you say. I disagree, and urge you to shut up and stop being an apologist: Facebook often functions as an echo chamber devoid of consciousness or critical thought. For every stupid food picture, statement of outrage, birthday wish, and TMI infodump, there are a dozen re-shared memes, propaganda, or internet links. It's an echo chamber that shows you just what your acquaintances are wasting their time with, and invites you to also read top tens, read unsourced and biased articles, look for cute pics, and post shallow, heart-on-sleeve political and social rhetoric. Yeah, that shit's pretty awful, and in this writer's humble opinion, far worse than the self-promotion and the mindless sharing of private moments with no real purpose.
Facebook is already irrelevant: savvy people know this, hip people know this, even tweens know this. I suspect that its last year of relevance was 2010. At this point users see it as either 'Facebook!' or 'depressing friend directory', and increasingly, not even the gullible youth are excited about Facebook anymore. Some even use Twitter to engage in such discussions as #noneofmyfriendsonfacebook and to broadcast that they're getting out of the Facebook game. With the userbase growing older, lamer, and reposting more and more shitty content from the internet, and generally doing nothing important, it is no surprise that hardly anyone considers an account a meaningful or exciting thing, except for people who are promoting themselves, their business, or their art. In the end Facebook will only be useful for them, but its complete irrelevance means that there will be no further scandal because the user base is complacent and the service fulfills its duty quite well.
With a stable share of users and corporate status, it is unlikely that Facebook will disappear in less than five years. Ff a better service steals its users it may dwindle, but in Web 2.0 and beyond, computer/internet-literate users are too insignificant a group. The odds of a better service emerging are also low, since Facebook is part of the establishment and can likely take infringing parties to court and bankrupt them even with frivolous litigation. Facebook itself isn't novel enough anymore to create 'addicts' in the 2006-era sense: remaining power users are generally students, stay-at-home-parents, or retirees. With every baby picture, family portrait, and unnecessary political diatribe, the service makes itself less remarkable and more profitable... with every deleted user account, Facebook continues to hold private data in digital escrow, as if preparing for a blackmail war... with every day, as it fades into irrelevance far away from the beating heart of the internet, Facebook becomes more of a fact of the internet, here to stay and inflict social suffering on untold thousands.
1/29/13
Legal and Moral Panic over Teenaged Trolls; the Coming Age of Anti-Troll Legislation
When Amanda Todd killed herself there was a fury which the internet-related deaths of hundreds of others failed to awaken. There was media hyperbole and the ever-present pointing of fingers. Yes, it was unquestionably a horrible, senseless ending to a young life. No, I don't think I'd blame teenagers for it – exclusively, at least. Teenagers, for all their precocious brightness, are almost without exception immature and are generally pretty impressionable as well. They are caged in shitty little worlds and it makes them inexplicable to older people who have escaped. Sometimes they feel like they can't escape, sometimes they think life sucks, and these and other things make them intolerable.
They're not particularly nice: they might respect their elders (which is immensely satisfying to smug elders), but they will go after each other with a wonderful blend of hatred and conviction one rarely sees outside of politics or ideological clashes. They're mean as rabid dogs: and in a culture which is arrogant enough to blame them while simultaneously encouraging them, it doesn't seem like there are a lot of people who really care. Society loves stories like these. They appeal to baser natures: outrage, righteousness, fury, voyeurs. They are easy to explain: evil kids, internet anonymity, lack of empathy, etc... The story needed to be told, but it was without reservation a story which was disgusting. Nothing about it seemed right, and looking into it was looking into the abyss of the internet and pretending to know what the fuck. Experts ran their mouths about how parents could prevent kids from falling into a similar trap. Punishments were devised. The police were all over it.
Truth of the matter is that such a thing will inevitably happen again, and something worse will undoubtedly happen if the law tries to get more deeply involved, pushing the criminal verges of cyber-harassment further underground where less idiotic and more dangerous people will continue in impunity. The internet is the last frontier of group psychology, and the denizens are very suspicious of lawmakers. There are many reasons for this, many of them despicable, but that's the way it is.
When I was a teenager cyber-bullying was nigh-impossible, because you could block people on MSN Messenger when they bothered you and few people were poser enough to use Myspace. The Digital Age was in its infancy: cameraphones were shitty and rare; cyber-bullying happened, but it wasn't a big deal because people lived offline. You simply weren't tethered and beholden to a 24/7, identity-bound life on the internet unless you were a nerd. Hints of a darker future were around, but those hints are in any past. Generally I bode my time until my personality had settled enough that I wasn't an insufferable shit, and then things started to look up. Towards the end of my tenure as a teenager high school was something that I had taken a positive leave from, and so distant it didn't always seem like a miserable prison anymore. In an even more distant past, as a veritable child, I logged into chats and started trouble for the hell of it on slow nights. Lots of us did, and following generations continued the tradition until...
Internet culture is filled with trolling. Often it is done with in a lighthearted spirit, and anyone who gets offended or falls for it is considered an idiot, ridiculed, and forgotten. 'Griefing', an online-game version of trolling, is almost a respectable pastime, and some 'griefs' have become legendary in their own right. Generally, when you see a troll on the internet, you are dealing with children, teenagers, or the mentally unfit. Sometimes they are amusing. Their antisocial stance would be interesting if it were self-aware and purposeful, but as a provocative measure it has few peers. Trolls are determined and capable of things many adults would balk at, such as trolling public facebook memorials about the recently deceased. Long story short: keep it private, or (I hate to be the one to say it) keep off the internet altogether because that shit is trashy, full stop.
They're not particularly nice: they might respect their elders (which is immensely satisfying to smug elders), but they will go after each other with a wonderful blend of hatred and conviction one rarely sees outside of politics or ideological clashes. They're mean as rabid dogs: and in a culture which is arrogant enough to blame them while simultaneously encouraging them, it doesn't seem like there are a lot of people who really care. Society loves stories like these. They appeal to baser natures: outrage, righteousness, fury, voyeurs. They are easy to explain: evil kids, internet anonymity, lack of empathy, etc... The story needed to be told, but it was without reservation a story which was disgusting. Nothing about it seemed right, and looking into it was looking into the abyss of the internet and pretending to know what the fuck. Experts ran their mouths about how parents could prevent kids from falling into a similar trap. Punishments were devised. The police were all over it.
Truth of the matter is that such a thing will inevitably happen again, and something worse will undoubtedly happen if the law tries to get more deeply involved, pushing the criminal verges of cyber-harassment further underground where less idiotic and more dangerous people will continue in impunity. The internet is the last frontier of group psychology, and the denizens are very suspicious of lawmakers. There are many reasons for this, many of them despicable, but that's the way it is.
When I was a teenager cyber-bullying was nigh-impossible, because you could block people on MSN Messenger when they bothered you and few people were poser enough to use Myspace. The Digital Age was in its infancy: cameraphones were shitty and rare; cyber-bullying happened, but it wasn't a big deal because people lived offline. You simply weren't tethered and beholden to a 24/7, identity-bound life on the internet unless you were a nerd. Hints of a darker future were around, but those hints are in any past. Generally I bode my time until my personality had settled enough that I wasn't an insufferable shit, and then things started to look up. Towards the end of my tenure as a teenager high school was something that I had taken a positive leave from, and so distant it didn't always seem like a miserable prison anymore. In an even more distant past, as a veritable child, I logged into chats and started trouble for the hell of it on slow nights. Lots of us did, and following generations continued the tradition until...
Internet culture is filled with trolling. Often it is done with in a lighthearted spirit, and anyone who gets offended or falls for it is considered an idiot, ridiculed, and forgotten. 'Griefing', an online-game version of trolling, is almost a respectable pastime, and some 'griefs' have become legendary in their own right. Generally, when you see a troll on the internet, you are dealing with children, teenagers, or the mentally unfit. Sometimes they are amusing. Their antisocial stance would be interesting if it were self-aware and purposeful, but as a provocative measure it has few peers. Trolls are determined and capable of things many adults would balk at, such as trolling public facebook memorials about the recently deceased. Long story short: keep it private, or (I hate to be the one to say it) keep off the internet altogether because that shit is trashy, full stop.
1/10/13
The Nerd Bubble and its Inevitable Collapse
It seems as if every contemporary identity conforms tightly to passively consuming the dismal excretions of this benighted age. Wherever you look, there are people insisting that what they are consuming is correct and necessary to a happy life. There is always the insistence that 'my kind need X too' (as if it were a surprising epiphany) and other ridiculous rhetoric such as inherent uniqueness. These beliefs have always been enthusiastically embraced, ruthlessly mocked, or completely ignored depending on the relative wisdom and maturity of the observer. There is one sort of contemporary identity that excels at absorbing all others and is generally 'on the make' as they say.
In 2007 there began an incredible shift in the behavior of Ur Hipsters, and/or they were found to possess certain interests and traits that, innocently enough, bordered the long dormant cultural powerhouse sometimes referred to as 'nerd culture'. Suddenly the coolest individual at the bar who liked the right music, played on the most epic amateur sports team, fucked the most attractive people, and partied the hardest was busy painting W40K miniatures as a hobby, played D&D on Sundays, and knew how to code. By 2013 there is a weird sense in the air that 'nerdy' pursuits and habits are necessary just to communicate.
It is as a certain bad 80's movie had prophesied. Like any decent historical inevitability, the rise of nerd culture was complex and in many ways self-fulfilling. The smart, awkward kid getting bullied in the 70's and 80's grew up into a normalized yuppie or yupster or suave po-mo individualist making good money doing engineering work or intense research or crucial computer work. Good or bad, they acted as the lifeblood of modernity. Their progeny, the current generation of 'young nerds' and/or the current 'nerd wave' movement, is an entirely different animal. Arguably, despite the surprising population of well-adjusted and balanced nerds, there is evidence to suggest that the much of the modern wave is quixotic, dysfunctional, and generally disinterested in aging measures of success such as social popularity, physical fitness, conformity, and party intensity.
I always get the idea that the mainstream nerd movement left the rails completely in the early 2000s. I get this idea because of the link posted above, wherein (and you might have missed this) a reality TV show tailored to nerds actually existed. The comicbook-style text boxes were so tasteful, so apt. There never was a nerd movement as such (as it was anecdotal to many other factors), but the word itself has gained such traction with increasing numbers of people, that one might rightly be said to exist at this point. And to be perfectly blunt, from the perspective of the modern identity fetish, it was probably a long time coming. Also completely inevitable. Mind you: I am no expert on nerd history, nor would I ever claim to be one.
In 2007 there began an incredible shift in the behavior of Ur Hipsters, and/or they were found to possess certain interests and traits that, innocently enough, bordered the long dormant cultural powerhouse sometimes referred to as 'nerd culture'. Suddenly the coolest individual at the bar who liked the right music, played on the most epic amateur sports team, fucked the most attractive people, and partied the hardest was busy painting W40K miniatures as a hobby, played D&D on Sundays, and knew how to code. By 2013 there is a weird sense in the air that 'nerdy' pursuits and habits are necessary just to communicate.
It is as a certain bad 80's movie had prophesied. Like any decent historical inevitability, the rise of nerd culture was complex and in many ways self-fulfilling. The smart, awkward kid getting bullied in the 70's and 80's grew up into a normalized yuppie or yupster or suave po-mo individualist making good money doing engineering work or intense research or crucial computer work. Good or bad, they acted as the lifeblood of modernity. Their progeny, the current generation of 'young nerds' and/or the current 'nerd wave' movement, is an entirely different animal. Arguably, despite the surprising population of well-adjusted and balanced nerds, there is evidence to suggest that the much of the modern wave is quixotic, dysfunctional, and generally disinterested in aging measures of success such as social popularity, physical fitness, conformity, and party intensity.
I always get the idea that the mainstream nerd movement left the rails completely in the early 2000s. I get this idea because of the link posted above, wherein (and you might have missed this) a reality TV show tailored to nerds actually existed. The comicbook-style text boxes were so tasteful, so apt. There never was a nerd movement as such (as it was anecdotal to many other factors), but the word itself has gained such traction with increasing numbers of people, that one might rightly be said to exist at this point. And to be perfectly blunt, from the perspective of the modern identity fetish, it was probably a long time coming. Also completely inevitable. Mind you: I am no expert on nerd history, nor would I ever claim to be one.
8/25/12
Deleted Reply to Facebook 'Ecocide Prevention' Status
It's too late to prevent ecocide. Fisheries are depleted, global ecologies are unbalanced and in disarray, and fracking will ruin whatever clean, mass available groundwater North America has left. The Rest are being exploited without any consideration for the future by the global plutocrat class and their lackeys. The oceans are dead zones compared to what they were an hundred years ago and anyone telling you different is trying to catch the remaining 10%, even octopi are becoming social pack animals under the pressure, and cephalopods are not social creatures. In a few thousand years they will crawl from the sickened seas and destroy the traces of our weakened civilization. Apes are in decline and we were the best of them.
Hicks will go on telling you the water's worth drinking while they accumulate gargantuan tumors public healthcare will have to pay for. Special interests will keep on telling you that anyone opposed to exploitation is a communist, radical feminist, or pathological environmentalist liar. Oil is reckless. Car culture is stupid. Earth is under intensive, exploitative attack for the last hundred years in the name of a flawed standard of living that nobody in the West will give up without a fight. Everyone who isn't already suffering from pollution-induced disease has been fooled and when cancer and dementia peak we'll be out of any legacy money and forced to die in the streets like forgetful, hateful animals, drinking plastic leachate garbage water from the sixties, estrogen refuse from the sexual revolution, and antidepressant pollutants from the 80's. We will feel nothing as we decline. Nobody in the west has given up on waste. Waste is killing our chances of survivability. Our weakness is killing our remaining odds. Consumerism is a rampaging lion with no serious opponents.
We fucked ourselves and being hippies is not an answer. We are going to pay for our complacency and the nature nuts will smirk at our dependent corpses and rotting cities, no matter how righteous we feel for being consumers. Then they, too, will succumb to the poison. And life will continue without us, thinking "good riddance". So go out and protest and go home, drive to the gym, and feel like a good person. You are just another sellout caught in a bad deal, another animal caught in the natural process of population peak and decline. Your impotent fury at the truth, or lack of truth, will not outlive the diseases waiting to waste you.
Hicks will go on telling you the water's worth drinking while they accumulate gargantuan tumors public healthcare will have to pay for. Special interests will keep on telling you that anyone opposed to exploitation is a communist, radical feminist, or pathological environmentalist liar. Oil is reckless. Car culture is stupid. Earth is under intensive, exploitative attack for the last hundred years in the name of a flawed standard of living that nobody in the West will give up without a fight. Everyone who isn't already suffering from pollution-induced disease has been fooled and when cancer and dementia peak we'll be out of any legacy money and forced to die in the streets like forgetful, hateful animals, drinking plastic leachate garbage water from the sixties, estrogen refuse from the sexual revolution, and antidepressant pollutants from the 80's. We will feel nothing as we decline. Nobody in the west has given up on waste. Waste is killing our chances of survivability. Our weakness is killing our remaining odds. Consumerism is a rampaging lion with no serious opponents.
We fucked ourselves and being hippies is not an answer. We are going to pay for our complacency and the nature nuts will smirk at our dependent corpses and rotting cities, no matter how righteous we feel for being consumers. Then they, too, will succumb to the poison. And life will continue without us, thinking "good riddance". So go out and protest and go home, drive to the gym, and feel like a good person. You are just another sellout caught in a bad deal, another animal caught in the natural process of population peak and decline. Your impotent fury at the truth, or lack of truth, will not outlive the diseases waiting to waste you.
2/18/11
Internet Provocateurs
What recommends a troll is wit. On the internet you do have a certain amount of anonymity in certain situations, and in those situations a type of witty but trollish response is the best-scoring. It's 100 points, all the way, when you don't swear or act like an irredeemable ass, but someone is still put down ruthlessly.
It's because I don't see enough of this that I think 1) all message boards are inversely, dimishing-returnedly useless and 2) that the internet has actually qualified as a net increase in the overall stupidity of humanity. Of course, the internet is still the postmodern paragon, the supreme effort of our time. Or at least part of it, right? 33% or somewhere around that type of importance.
I see enough people glued to the internet like barnacles at bars and in public, and I've only recently begun to look for it. I cannot and will not disperse myself in public to write something as nonsense as a blog post. That is weak usage all around: of time, bandwidth, and focus. I cannot, so I don't have the temptation to check facebook between drinks, but I won't do it.
Unless adequately recompensed, of course.
It's because I don't see enough of this that I think 1) all message boards are inversely, dimishing-returnedly useless and 2) that the internet has actually qualified as a net increase in the overall stupidity of humanity. Of course, the internet is still the postmodern paragon, the supreme effort of our time. Or at least part of it, right? 33% or somewhere around that type of importance.
I see enough people glued to the internet like barnacles at bars and in public, and I've only recently begun to look for it. I cannot and will not disperse myself in public to write something as nonsense as a blog post. That is weak usage all around: of time, bandwidth, and focus. I cannot, so I don't have the temptation to check facebook between drinks, but I won't do it.
Unless adequately recompensed, of course.
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