Friday, May 18, 2007

It's a hard knock life.

You know what I rather dislike? Blogs. I know that sounds a little silly, this being a blog and all, but I really, incredibly dislike the whole concept of a blog. From their self indulgent beginnings, to their traumatic relationship-mapping endings, they really, really piss me off. So much so in fact, that sometimes I awake from my slumber in the middle of the night, tangled in my sheets, cat nibbling on my toes, doused in the sweat that only a person filled with pure self-loathing can sweat. Really, it is a very hard life I lead, one spent precariously balanced on the incredibly fine (and often non-existent) line between producing mindless self centered crap, and mindless self centered bullshit.

The whole medium is a bit of a joke, to say the least. It's almost completely aimed at attracting 14 year olds to spill their guts into their keyboard, and in turn, inflict it upon their friends, and their friends friends, and then their friends enemies, which of course can only end in whiny little fights about how insincere Hayley is, and what a cow Bianca has become. And with the beauty of myspace, both Hayley & Bianca are only ever three clicks away from seeing their best friends' bitchings about them, which is right about the point the cruel death spiral kicks in. It's pretty much inevitable when you think about it... you apply something as volatile and stupid as teenage angst to a platform so vast, wide, and supposedly anonymous as the internet, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a world where everyone thinks that they're bulletproof in their anonymity, yet, through one forum or another, everyone actually knows who everyone else is anyway, and both Hayley and Bianca are going to kick your arse come Monday, and quite deservedly so too, you little gossipy bitch, you.

All that's really happening is that you're multiplying your ability to embarrass yourself in your formative years by a factor of about, oh... a zillion or so. But it won't stop there... nooooooo. These kids are 14 now, but the day will come when they're second year uni or somesuch, and someone eventually puts two and two together, and finds their Pokemon fanboy site that they created in their Year 7 IT classes. It'll be a giant cache of blinking text, randomly placed oversized gifs, stretched jpegs and downright stupid quotes in all their glory. People will say it's cute, but lets be honest here... it's not. It's like looking into a mirror and seeing yourself as a retard in a former life. You can't make it go away, because fuck knows you can't remember what sort of stupid login name and password you would've given yourself way back then. Something very witty, no doubt, probably involving your favorite pet, your favorite top ten band, and probably some sort of inane product - like a stapler - that you fixated on at the time in the hope that it would somehow portray some kind of personality trait that would finally make people sit up and take notice.

And, I might add, internet forums duplicate this very same problem. I don't know why, but teenagers seem to be inextricably programmed to self assuredly say the most cringeworthy things, at the worst possible time. Any forums you might be on will no doubt be invaded by these overgrown children at one point or another, and people will give them all the grace in the world... until again and again, assert the most utterly stupid things flying directly in the face of all decent logic, manners, and even respect afforded to them, quite undeservedly. But no. On they go, absolutely fucking determined to make as big an arse of themselves as possible, completely oblivious to every warning sign along the way.

Surely, the solution is obvious. They need their own internet. An internet where censorship can run riot, an internet where everything comes up Geocities and Myspace. An internet, in fact, where normal, perfectly functional design rules and etiquette have no place, and instead chaos and favorited garish colours, ringtones and pictures run rampant. An internet, in fact, where everyone communicates with each other in quotes from the latest deep and meaningful track from 50 cent. An internet that I can not, and will not be able to participate in. I shall call it both Heaven and Hell; For like Scientologist conventions, it keeps them and their influences the fuck away from me, but conversely, gives them the strength of numbers that I could only imagine the sheer force of, and wish to forever avoid.

The really cool part is that we'd get our own, adults only internet. Woo! No more 'My six year old will see this and melt into a puddle of anti-child and grow up to become a serial killer/rapist, so you have to take this down right now or go to prison/appear on tabloid covers forever' bullshit. No more censorship! No more arguments with 13 year olds! NO MORE MYSPACE! Think of the pleasure! Think of the glory! And please, don't anybody think of the children! FORWARDS TO VICTORY! HYA!!!

Now all we need to do is work out what the hell to do with the rest of us bloggers. Consign us all to hell, or force us into the workhorse monotony that is online zine-ing? I say you should feed us ice cream sundaes and pay us lots and lots of money so we can live the life of luxury that truly, we must deserve, for being so stupid as to battle it out in such a knob-headish medium for so fucking long.

So, bring me ice-cream, minions. Now!

10 comments:

CeeJay said...

If i bring you icecream will you then say nice things about me on your blog? And delete all the cruel and untrue things you've said in the past? Or do I have to get the girls to come round at lunchtime and beat up on you?

Anonymous said...

As much as I agree with the ideal here, your logic as fundamentally flawed regarding 'adults' and the Internet. Presenting exhibit A, part the deux!

Anonymous said...

The following is a list of asshats. Michelle, Lachie, Krus, Kath, Carlne, John Howard, God, Anyone who isn't me. There we go. Perfect bitching without anyway to trace it back to me.

Anonymous said...

Shit.. um guys... how do i edit my posts?

Anonymous said...

One last thing. We should just slap big stickers on modems, routers and all other intertube dohickeys saying "must be 18 or over to use this". Stickers solve all of lifes woes.

Kipper said...

Blogs are fine. Twitter, however, is an alternative to blogging for people who have nothing whatsoever to say for themselves. Pah!

rws said...

Actually, the Christians are already starting to wall themselves off in their own internet, as well. They already have their own Wikipedia, YouTube and even MySpace.

The Rantolotl said...

You know, I'm not seeing any icecream yet...

Anonymous said...

I'm sending the icecream, expect it to arrive in about 2 weeks. I'm sure it will still be frozen, it's almost winter there right?

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.