Posted by Strider on 10/2/2009, 9:14 am, in reply to "Why I'm Starting To Dislike The Internet"
Okay, so it took me a long time to respond to this because of various personal goings-on, but here goes.
Firstly, I think you're unduly paranoid about a lot of things here. Yes, the people who made fun of you in High School are on Facebook- but on the most part, they don't remember you and certainly aren't waiting for you to show up. If you don't want to deal with them, then fine- either don't friend them or just avoid Facebook entirely. (Aside: I've actually found Facebook quite useful for reconnecting with people from middle school that I'd otherwise almost certainly never have run into again, and have been mostly successful at avoiding people I don't want to deal with)
Really, when you get down to it: it's a big internet. Yes, there are non-nerds are here, but just because you're both at the same shopping mall doesn't mean you have to go into the same stores… I also, for the record, wholeheartedly believe that trolls and griefers are less numerous than you seem to think; I've barely heard mention of Anonymous or the Forum Goons since I kicked my ED-reading habit. We actually had a run-in with ED over at the Hardcore Gaming 101 forums a while back when someone decided that it would be a good idea to try and start shit between the two sites; I never thought I'd say this, but the ED folks were actually quite civil about the whole affair.
Honestly, the world isn't as hostile a place as you imagine, on the internets or in person. I'm not going to try and say that the real world doesn't favor extroverts (it does, and as someone who's not outgoing and doesn't like crowds, I struggle with it every day) and I'm not going to claim that most people don't look down on nerds (they do, and I'm big enough to admit that I have my own persecution complex about that). Unfortunately, though, this is the world we've got- there comes a time when you've either got to try and change it or survive in it, and complaining on the internet about how cyberspace isn't an exclusive clubhouse anymore isn't going to help with either.
- HC
--Previous Message--
: Once upon a time, there was a place where the
: socially inept could retreat from the
: critical, mocking world. There, they could
: meet kindred spirits, discuss common
: interests, and create simple works of art in
: a private, non-judgmental atmosphere. This
: place was known as the Internet.
:
: All was well until the mid-2000s, with the
: phenomenal emergence of social networking
: sites like MySpace and Facebook. The
: "Beautiful People" invaded the
: Internet en masse, relegating the social
: outcasts to the sidelines once again. With
: their annoyingly simple tastes and tendency
: to coerce and convert those different from
: them, the popular kids have succeeded in
: taking over what was once a nerds'
: stronghold.
:
: It seems that more and more
: "griefers" surface on the Internet
: every day, forming close-knit societies and
: elaborate inside jokes as they join forces
: to destroy the lives of those less
: fortunate.
:
: Search engines such as Google have become
: weapons, surveillance tools, used by an
: individual's potential enemies to dig up
: incriminating information about that
: individual. In today's struggling economy,
: business owners have been using the Internet
: to spy on their less desirable employees,
: desperately looking for reasons to fire
: these workers and cut company expenses. In
: addition, in recent years there has been an
: alarming rise in the number of elderly
: Internet users, who are only interested in
: violating the privacy of their younger
: relatives in a misguided attempt at love.
:
: Even our culture has suffered. Look no
: further than YouTube for examples. This
: unspeakable video inexplicably has over
: twenty million views. (Harry Dacre, who
: wrote the original "Daisy Bell"
: song over a century ago, must be turning in
: his grave.) And this grotesque cartoon is
: an international sensation, its atonal
: song's repetitive lyrics having been
: translated into a multitude of languages and
: looping infinitely in the nightmares of
: children around the world.
:
: The quality and integrity of our video games
: also grow more diluted as time goes on. For
: example, right now, there is a popular RPG
: out there. Its gameplay is lacking, its
: story is plagiarized wholesale from a
: bestselling fantasy novel, its graphics are
: simple recolors of the RPG Maker XP
: defaults, and its soundtrack consists of
: lifeless, sleep-inducing symphonies made by
: a young hotshot California music major.
: Moreover, the game's authors have the utter
: nerve to demand money for the downloads.
: Still, this game has an enviable following,
: with hundreds of regular members on the
: official site's message board. Odd how RPGs
: were once considered "video games for
: thinking people."
:
: With each passing day, our world becomes
: progressively more like filmmaker Mike
: Judge's quasi-comedic dystopian vision of
: the distant future. And sadly, cyberspace is
: no longer a refuge for independent thought.
:
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