So this guy in 1995 wrote about why the internet will suck. This article was reprinted and reblogged and is going around the web right now and a lot of assholes are feeling pretty smug about “how wrong this guy was” and how the internet is actually quite awesome now. Hold the fuck on for a second, and read the article, and think about it. This guy definitely was not wrong on most of his ideas, and no one should feel good about that. The internet does still suck in pretty much all the ways he describes.
The author immediately refers to the internet (the 1995 internet, mind you) as “trendy and oversold”. It still fucking is. Trendy? See: Twitter. Oversold? See: Google. A lot of what he says the futurists predicted have not happened presently, and what small steps we made (like internet video conferencing and Second Life) are relegated only to either academics (whose careers rely on them) or the most cutting-edge corporations (who don’t mind dumping money on trendy things to appeal to their employees).
I don’t really know what’s wrong with the world today, but here’s a place to start:
Ugh. I’ve listened to this song a couple times since it came out and I’ve largely avoided it because it makes me very depressed. I didn’t really know why, I just felt a pain in my gut when I heard those lyrics and that pseudo-R&B beat and poor old Alicia Keys’ voice. Unfortunately, I’ll analyze this a bit.
I don’t think I need to say anything more. I think the “breakdown” at 2:50 especially exemplifies what’s wrong here.
Special thanks to Zach Maxell for bringing this to my attention. I was going to write a long-winded rant about this, akin to the crabcore article, but I don’t want to waste any more words on this right now.
If you are under 30, stop skimming this and go read it. The book is called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30, by Mark Bauerlein. I like the title just because of how annoyingly long it is; you know everyone stops reading it once they’ve read the first three words. Also, the title of this blog post is funny.
If you’re still reading this, then I guess I’ll explain why you should stop right now and go buy that book. Firstly, I’m going to say that it was an extremely validating book, because it eloquently examines, with scientific backing, the same material that I myself focus on in my nonfiction writing (see: this blog). Basically, this blog is a lot like the book, but with almost nothing listed to back it up besides my own ego, and is much less hateful than my rants. However, about halfway through (starting with a chapter called “Online Learning and Non-Learning”) Mark suddenly gets a lot more biting with his remarks, much more flippant with his tone. I like that a lot. It excited me. Before this, you spend over a hundred pages going over statistics on literacy and intelligence aptitude testing scores and how they have changed over the last half-century. While this is interesting, and it certainly lays a foundation of scientific and statistical inquiry, it gets kind of dry. But dear reader, persevere through it, because once you get to the asshole side of Mark, there’s no end to the roller-coaster of awesome.
The latter half of the book is full of amazing quotes and themes, of which I’m not going to cover all here, but I’ll go over my favorites. (Oh god there’s so much text below this, I’m sure all of you people under 30 are going to have heart problems, but please try and wade through it. This information is vital.)
Listen to the motherfucking awesome song. Party & Bullshit (In the USA) (Notorious B.I.G. vs Miley Cyrus) For those fools who are unfamiliar, this is from Best of Bootie 2009, an annual album comprised entirely of amazing bootleg mashups. Why is it especially awesome? Because through their music, they transform culture. Really, they take normally earsplitting mainstream shit, smash it together like they do in the goddamn LHC, and transmute it into danceable, art-worthy brilliance.
But I’m singling out “Party & Bullshit (In the USA)” for a reason. The reason is simple and fairly obvious, but I want to explain it for those who don’t pick up on it immediately. This song is taking something that’s doing it wrong and making it right. I like to complain about what’s wrong, but some things deserve a break to be commended. Especially if it’s transformative. So what’s wrong? Miley Fucking Cyrus, that’s what. Honestly, I had never listened (or known that I was listening) to a Miley Cyrus song before this one, mostly because I figured she’d sound just like thoseothergirls. I was wrong. She’s worse.
[What's Wrong is gonna be my goddamn every-once-in-awhile examination of the obvious.]
Yeah so this is old, but it’s still funny and it’s still wrong. Crabcore. If you don’t have an IV pumping internet into your veins at all times like I do, you might not have heard of this. You are fortunate. Let me bring you down to my level, briefly.
“Crabcore” is a subsubsubgenre of hardcore (is that even a genre? Ugh, another post for another day) which involves adolescent males with very black hair and a complete lack of style pumping on easy chords and strumming like a crab. Exhibit A: