Has the Golden Era of Adblockers Passed?

Recently I tried to watch some online video on a television channel's website. The video applet failed to load completely and it didn't take long for me to develop the correct suspicion. I disabled my adblocker and reloaded the page. No fucking video. So I open the page in a vanilla browser and it loads, a wild contrast from what I had, up till that point, been used to. On the vanilla browser there is a banner and large square add. Then the video starts and I am subjected to extra-loud advertising, TV style, with a vengeance. In addition to the other adds. Another advertisement plays, and a third, before my content is loaded.

Adblockers, with the advent of hijacked banner ads and unscrupulous marketing, to say nothing of the paranoid or political users of the internet, are not simply a tool entitled users employ to rid themselves of annoyances. Ad-blockers are legitimately a way of keeping your computer clean, of preventing your oft-used technological distractions from compromise. The fact you don't have to watch commercials (which are basically always: manipulative, insulting, indoctrinating or some shameful combination of all three) is an added bonus to not having your internet-accessing-device fucked with.

I am not a poweruser but I've been adblocking for years - since I discovered it was possible. I understand that advertising revenue drives some smaller sites, and, yes, I'd agree they deserve their due - assuming they police their advertisements for some level of quality. Fine, whatever, have your .005 cents per impression. You deserve it, plucky little website. However, the worst offenders are often large media sites – sometimes even those which already use paywalls. Let me present a brief overview of the galloping trend of online advertising.

In the early 90's during the second wave of the internet, when things became graphical enough that advertisement in the classic sense became possible, it was largely internet entities that advertised for themselves, and certain forward looking companies often related to the tech-sector. It was a simpler time. By late 1999 basically everyone who wasn't under a rock or a dinosaur was getting into online advertisement. 'Hey, check out our website at http://www.geocities.SonnysPizza/index.htm for some coupons' and other types of hilarity abounded. Whatever, wherever you got advertised to, it took a slice of your pitiful bandwidth and generally wasted time and resources, but you had to face it. Eventually MSN Messenger (R.I.P) becomes huge, and eventually it begins to advertise to you.

Side banner; top banner; .gif flames - all of these things were familiar. Between then and now the internet has grown up and come of age to the point where a huge section of people use it. All the troglodytes, termites, attractive well-adjusted people, and infants came out of the woodwork and the internet is full of everyone now. Whatever, other people will tell you about it, and some gigantic nerd could probably make a convincingly venomous deal about it... all I'll say is it drove a wave of advertising intensity that eventually rivaled the notorious realm of television adverts.

Fucking pop-ups were one thing, but there came layers of advertising that would jump into existence around key-words. Video sidebars that glitched out your browser and had to fling their audio payloads into your ears. 'Interactive' commercials made by committees of dullards and shills. YouTube videos became clogged with side, top, and skippable pre-video advertisements for every user account considered important enough to waste your time for their profit. What was once dumb, became even dumber, amen. So it goes, right? Absolutely. Yet there were additions to your browsers that would kill all advertising.

True to form, adblockers were free. They worked, and nobody who adopted them ever looked back. Surfing without them was like going back in time. It sucked, you were exposed to all the reprehensible shit that barely existed in your ideal internet experience. Going back to ads is like hitting yourself in the face with a shoe. Beautiful adblocking programs, released by benevolent and right-minded developers, worked on classic print ads, video ads, and even ads played in video content. It is like a magic balm that drives mosquitoes far, far away. For those who use adblockers, the internet just is that much less shitty. It's less claustrophobic and it can seem like the terminal cash-in state of the world has been opposed.

So of course, it comes to an end, by hosted content ('hosting ain't free, yo') which a profitable broadcaster puts online. Until very recently I had never been blocked for anything but geographical reasons (though nationalization of the internet is another ugly recent phenomenon) but a week or two ago I was denied a show I had been following online. I imagine in a year it will be impossible to skip video-advertisements everywhere, and only the smug power users will know what to do about it. Hopefully the same people who did the good work of blocking online advertising will keep up and their programs will not lapse into irrelevance due to some frightening and monstrous online advertising epidemic.

Because what the hell? You're running a profitable business already, and why not add some more revenue? Why not even more? Why not three advertisements every five-and-a-half minutes on video content? Why not have it be 30% louder than actual content, like on TV? Who cares is the commercial is ideologically loaded or bankrupt of all value? Who cares if it's annoying? 'I like money, gentlemen, and nobody gets a free lunch!'

A browser without an adblocker is a sign of a pitiable person trapped in the commercial arena, a hopeless square, a submissive lackadaisical fuck, a worthless shit hyperbole rapist. This is one fight the internet should not lose.

Come on, YouTube.

You used to be a place where I could sensibly browse for videos. Now you offer me a few topics and "Recommended for You" shit. I loved when there were 15 pages of 'most viewed today' videos, and you didn't creep my video history to tell me what to watch. Every one-off video I watch when I'm logged in now means I get a bunch more recommended and have to go all over the place in search of something original.

Oh, for Me?

"Most viewed" is too archaic, apparently. I can only watch what you want. Sure, there used to be all kinds of segregated sections of videos, and lots of things were hard to find, and there was pretty much always a bunch of bullshit. You always hyped the worst things based on the metric of how popular they were. I didn't care. I knew there was always an unbiased list of worldwide views. People gamed that system all the time but it generally brought me joy and decent videos. There used to be a front page where unsorted videos could be browsed according to whether they were recently posted, most views, most liked, most subscriptions. Y'all remember that? That was awesome. There was a 50/50 chance, every day, of finding something new and either interesting or funny, or just completely strange – no searching, just actual, lazy, unguided browsing.

You still got the search bar. If you got rid of it you'd be Web 3.0, of course: the era in which all the internet, like a modern game, plays itself. You redesigned a bunch of times. I never saw the reason for it, but I'm not a capitalist so my opinion doesn't matter for shit. I realize people need money to make things 'better' and the internet is hugely profitable. But your reconstruction wasn't for the better. If I can't see ~100 of the day's most viewed videos then what's the point? You want me to play the game your way, but there's not that many channels worth subscribing to, no matter how many of them can waste my time more or less enjoyably.

It's not about me anymore, it's about You. I understand why I can't find any television show ever made anymore. That was never going to last. I just want to actually browse. I mean I want to see a large variety of things in one place arranged logically, not according to metaterms or what's trending or what you think I should watch. I used to be able to do this, to find new, unlisted, unhyped things every day, but now I feel blind. I get 'trending' instead of 'most viewed' and it's just plain frustrating that there's no way to arrange things logically anymore.

You're like a giant focus group now, YouTube. Except they're all yes-men and cronies, and they're crowding me into a small room, and there's no window, so all I smell is their terrible coffee breath, and all I hear is their terrible opinions about what's good, and it's dark, and I don't want to have Minecraft videos recommended to me. 2010 is over, YouTube.

Maybe I'm a bad internet browser. Maybe I get frustrated about nothing, and I just don't know how to navigate your many avenues properly, and you still offer a 'most views' section, and I'm just crazy for not getting to it. I hope that's the case, because then I'd have a reason to have a bit of faith in you, and it would have been me who was blind. Not you blinding me. I don't think I'm crazy. I think you changed for the lamest, like you've always been doing, and if this is the future of the internet then good luck with it. We both know I'm not the center of the universe, and playing some terrible algorithmic joke to make it seem so is unimpressive and creepy. I want options, and less of this Mickey Mouse horse shit.

I know that much of the internet wants to know every last thing about what I do so they can further reduce my purview and essentially control what I see, do, and buy. Nationalism online is already an old story.  I don't want or need that kind of reduced outlook, and their methods are increasingly obvious. The worst part is that I couldn't even put a date on YouTube's last upgrade, but essentially it was the day the videos died. At least there's still a search bar.

Definitely a Big Deal

Oh certainly the election in the United States of America is a big deal. It's a big deal, alright? I wasn't really following it like some others, but I hear it was a close race. Congratulations to the candidates, both of them, for not going too low. For not spending too much corporate monies, you know? I'm sure things will be better from here on out.

For one thing, every newscast is going to have to find something else important to report on every day without pause during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 24 hour news cycles are going to have to wait for the first big event. Basically, the media needs to find the next thing to drive into the ground/beat like a dead horse. Don't worry, news junkies! The media is good at finding something else.

I for one am happy that I won't have to hear about the election anymore. I was thoroughly tired of it. I was tired of people asking why, in my country, we should still care so much about the Emperor of the United States of America. Sorry. Wait... I'm leaving that terrible joke in there, as chastisement for all the hours and minutes I've had to spend listening to dummies talk about how politics are going to play out. Everyone who said, "Listen to these economic woes, this territorial instability, or that ongoing war" – bless you. Nobody listened, unfortunately, because big money was rolling around and two titanic monopolies were fighting about the 'future'. I took notice, but alas, I rarely take notice of the news.

I was tired of being asked who I thought I would win. I was tired of the sharp sensation that Romney might have an edge, even though it was all optics. Madmen would vote Romney into power. Madmen would suggest that one candidate was more Reaganific than the other (they were both equals in that regard). Oh there were so many 'experts' and talking heads, and dumb quacks, and vicious moments. I really wondered about it. So many Jon Stewart quips and bits some good, some bad, some reused by Colbert or improved by him... All for what? Yea, the elections here are less exciting. Our government's fist is empillowed and our people are indolent and selfish. It is like any other country, but our politicians have less money and less power than a Goddamn President, baby!

The president, be he a wise man or a fool, cannot by himself fix the job market. Even his policies cannot undo what was done or enacted by his predecessors. The president's foreign policies, no matter how balanced or cautious or brutal cannot end foreign grief and heartbreak and vengeance. The president, male or female, is no magician. The president, honorable or despicable, is not a coat-hook for your dreams, your identity, or your aspirations. So be thankful that someone got the job, and that you don't have to hear about campaigns for another few months (the joke is that some kind of politic is going to be news in about six hours, let alone six months or four years). Work on developing your own person. Work on developing your own community, think on what your country really means to you. Wherever you are, think on who really owns it, and who suffers for it and who pays for what – and above all, who spends the money.

For the record, I think both candidates had fair points to make. I think Romney was interested in making his points very badly, and Obama was a touch more eloquent and balanced in his point-making. I don't think either had valid platforms for fixing real issues, and I think their parties are at fault. I think this campaign, whatever else, should teach people that simple, dumbed-down, mass democracy built around polarized 'hot-topics' and sub-human 'brand politics' creates the America poor Obama has to continue running. A country, mind you, filled with partisan hatred, fear, poverty, ignorance, racism, problems... upon problems... upon problems, and then inequality, and then all the other petty possibilities that come from a populace which follows such a dreamlike, expensive, overblown and maniacal 'campaign season' to their (I stress 'their') own cost.

To which I say, excellent. You paid for it, you enjoy it. I wish I'd seen less of it, so the result would be more of a surprise. Lovely Americans, have a great second Obamian Term, and stop bitching about it so much. Romney shouldn't have sourced his logoed garbage from China, and if the results of the election anger you in any way, you should think on that point very carefully. Hopefully you realize the point.

In the meantime, everyone, search for your heart's content for the overblown, ridiculous, and spiteful American Response. We are in for social media's darkest, stupidest hour. And let us not forget, as well, that broadcast television newscasts will probably STILL take a full week to shut up about the events of the last twenty-four hours.

Slurring Verses

One early morning I was looking up advice about noise pollution. From insulation, all the way to polite confrontation, went the advice I found. I found a page that I should've bookmarked which talked about gift baskets. Elsewhere I was advised to defuse the situation with some baked breads – which is disturbing if you have a perverse mind and even if you accept the words literally. Try solving anything beyond hunger with a home baked bread.

Baskets of gifts are pretty ostentatious, insulation is expense, and confrontation is the Achilles' heel of the misanthrope. I always think I'll figure out some devious cure to problems I may just be exaggerating. At least, that's what I think I do, but the truth is probably a bit more convoluted. In any case, I went wrong by seeking advice on the internet, and that's really the extent of the issue.

I am definitely not against the internet, but I can't imagine all the things it might've been if it wasn't immediately harnessed by nonsense. Things the inter-ignorant don't know much about, such as trolls, are actually becoming more common. Drastically more common, as a quick look at any forum or comment section (itself the curse of our stunningly obsessive and pathological habits) will prove.

But 'troll' has been a metaphor always, and not a bad one at that. I guess at one point a person could point at a nonsensically aggravating individual and say,

"Fuck off, you churl!"

 I write that academically, of course. I guess what I'm looking for, accurately, is advice for living with the daily trolls of the universe. I need a solution that works for any troll situation.

At the same time I have myself been guilty of being a troll in the past, and part of me looks at troll-problems as a function of karma - perhaps the ultimate expression of foot in one's mouth. If that's the case I need to be able to accurately measure karma, or else I'll never know when I should become its agent. Agent of Karma (good movie title +/- concept).

And noise pollution is itself kind of an interesting concept. Even good enough that someone could make a movie about it, but I suppose it is still rather misunderstood. It really exists, though, and you have to believe this. The best example is careless placement of wind chimes; maybe purposeful muffler alteration.

Wind chimes are not offensive in theory, but in practice, or windy areas, can get ridiculous. This is because they do not rest, and instead go on chiming at all hours. And chimes generate sharp noise, so the sound can travel a fair distance. Furthermore, if someone stands at a fair distance, and wishes to hear the night's elemental silence-music, they are forced to include the ostentatious music of chimes chiming in the breeze.

Muffler alteration for the sake of, say, noise, is probably the ultimate type of pollution. I'd say it borders on noise crime. I even know of a direct example of the power of even a small combustion engine.

Anyhow, trolls see noise-pollution as favorable because it allows them to broadcast themselves and trouble others. It's like interpersonal agitprop, or perhaps sonic graffiti, because it is deliberately noticeable and serves no noticeable purpose. I see it as a form of offensive excess, often used indiscriminately – why else the echo-mufflers of the world, the deafening car audio, F-1 racing?

It's always some more of that old noise pollution. Thunder isn't noise pollution because it is part of an inescapable process.  Television and radio are (or can be, if you're conservative), because few people speak judiciously. Marching in sufficient force is kind of a noise pollution. And I almost forgot about noise cannons and sonic weaponry, which is paralleled only by microwave weaponry in terms of odiousness.

That's all just energy pollution but with a target. And, ultimately, aren't bullets pollution as well? Couldn't we as a planet come to some sort of awakened conversation about pollution? We are submerged in pollution, and the green team has monopolized it in the name of ecological commonsense, but other very real types of pollution exist.

Perhaps, reader, and I am sorry to bring this up, but perhaps you are ignorant and you laugh. You think to yourself, "That untypical gentleman is throwing words together about things that he either invented or read about in an anonymous internet article written by, no doubt, a bunch of kooks and quacks." Maybe you don't even know or care about the multitude of disasters that have always existed, even that special class of disaster which is anthropogenic. If you do not care, you may be a troll.

Pollution, depending on how one defines it, is always the source of grief and stress in organisms.  Therefore it can be communicated as a bad thing, a negative. So when one repays pollution with more pollution, one has two bad things, and is sure to come to grief by both of them. If one merely accepts the initial pollution, one still deals with grief, and if one ignores it, the pollution still goes on existing. One can try to portray pollution as a good thing, and maybe even believe the delusion, but that does not change what exists.

So there's a thing called Troll Pollution, and, to the average person, it's more of a big deal than climate change or the pole shift or the greasy atmosphere. I've been thinking about it, and suppose it's simply just a negative aura that self-perpetuates, and if you look closely at a lot of the human world and its alleged history, you can apply the concept of troll pollution to explain such diverse topics as:

• Fights ending in death
• Theft
• Injustice – casual or severe
• Contention
• Fraud
• Noise pollution
• Jackasses
• Discrimination, hate crimes
• Psychologically damaging circumstances
• Fights ending in serious and/or life-threatening injury
• Consumerism, Postmodernism
• Authoritarianism, Feudalism, Anarchism
• 'Anarchism'
• Statism, Legalism, Recidivism, elitism
• Depression, Indigestion, Castration, Defenestration
• Charlatanism
• Entropy
• This blog post.