Because we can.
I don�t think so.
And then I realize: I am these people.
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| You are being manipulated | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Concentric Egotism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| So, here we all are with our web pages. Millions of people, mostly middle-middle and upper-middle class people, and probably mostly white, taking advantage of this medium to blow our tinny trumpets and post for the world to see our not-so-humble opinions-- Why? Because we can. |
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| Is the world waiting desperately, hoping to catch pearls dripping from our enlightened tongues? Is the collective breath of the Internet-connected world being held while praying for gleaming nuggets of truth, of prophecy, of salvation to be passed out by those of us who wield control over a keyboard and a mouse? I don�t think so. |
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| We do this because we are a culture of egomaniacs. We are so eager to push out our thoughts like screaming infants popping from the womb that we have no time (or inclination) to listen to what someone else has to say. We form our responses before the other person has finished speaking. �Here�s my web page,� we proudly proclaim. �A place where I can post my views on fill-in-the-blank. My online journal.� Never mind the fact that nobody gives a fuck. Why the hell should I care about your job in Indiana or the weekend your family spent at the beach? Who cares what your kids look like? What makes you think that a world full of total strangers wants to know the intimate details of your life? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Americans all want to be celebrities. We want other people to think we�re important. The advertising culture has spread this self-absorbed viewpoint like a cancer throughout Western society. We are bombarded with advertising almost everywhere; on the streets, in the sky, on the sides of buildings, in schools, in public restrooms, in our homes, on supermarket packages, on supermarket floors, for God�s sake, and so on, ad nauseum. We have become inured to it. We have learned to sublimate it. We have assimilated it. We have been assimilated. We are the product. "American" is now synonymous with �consumer� (and in many foreign countries, it�s synonymous with �idiot.�). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We are obsessed with ourselves. We love to hear ourselves talk (I know, I know, me too). We are obsessed with money, with our looks, our health, our status, our sex lives. We want what we can�t or shouldn�t have. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone obsessed with making and spending more money suddenly dropped that and became obsessed with, oh, say, saving the environment? Or creating alternative fuels and energy? Or getting political prisoners released from abominable conditions in prisons worldwide? Or fighting for equal rights for all people? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I look for information on the Web and am invariably led , like most people, down weird byways, lured by strange page titles and thinking I may find something useful by serendipity. Sometimes this happens. Most of the time, though, I wind up marooned on someone�s bizarre little planet, surrounded by bad grammar and misspelled words, inappropriate analogies and mixed metaphors, tiny little ideas doomed to agonizing death by the eventual (one hopes) onset of maturity by the current self-important web-page builder. �A forum for my thoughts� is nothing more than mental masturbation, and, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with masturbation as long as you�re not convinced that you�re really having a meaningful experience with someone besides yourself. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| So, here I am, masturbating along with everyone else on the Weird World Web, and I�m feeling superior and trying to tell myself that what I�m saying is much more important than most of the stuff posted, and that I�m different from all these geeks and losers putting their lives on public display and renting out their minds to corporations. I smirk and sneer, I browse web pages and I think, God, who are these people? And then I realize: I am these people. |
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2000 Truman Hooks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Episode 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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