Tag: internet

Ironic America

Does a teenager raised on virtual violence become a man unable to understand the incitement-act-effect process?

The most disturbing thing, among many disturbing things, revealed in Louis Theroux’s new documentary Forbidden America is the twisted logic behind the protagonists philosophy.

I don’t mean their views, which I trust, since you’re an attentive reader of this blog, you already know I don’t share. I’m talking about the sight of men in their twenties screaming abuse like frustrated thirteen-year-olds. What might be irritating but almost understandable behaviour in a pre-pubescent boy, erupting as it does from confusion, heightened testosterone and frustration that the world doesn’t seem to care about his ego, is cause for concern in a grown man.

Is this what happens when young men are isolated, communicating only through violent online games, the most extreme behaviour rewarded? In one scene a man threatens to rape a particular young woman, describing in detail what he’s going to do to her, and then laughs. The girl herself then says that she understands he’s being ironic, but that she still felt threatened.

I’m still trying to come to terms with that.

These men – and they are almost exclusively men – excuse their outbursts by saying they’re ironic; the word keeps cropping up. They espouse extremely right wing views but then say they’re not part of the right wing; they’re being ironic.

Presumably the fact that they all make their living from streaming their childish nonsense, and are therefore constantly craving viewers, is not an insignificant factor.

The Internet: the greatest tool for communication in the history of humanity. Look upon ye works and despair.

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Time’s vacuum

London

Days vanish into the Internet’s virtual cesspool, one after the other, each spiralling deeper until slipping from my grasp only to be replaced by the next.

An intricate, expensive system devised to suck away time, as if powered by all those hours spent by billions of people every day. As if driven by time itself.

Are you hunched over your laptop, internally debating the merits of a four-pack over an eight-pack on the Tesco website? Those minutes are driving it. Weighing the three day weekend in Rome against the minibreak in Lanzarote? Grist to the mill. And which hotel would be better? This one has a prettier spa, but that one’s in the centre of town. Tick, tick, tick, the smiling face of the Internet demon is relishing your time.

Or are you standing on the morning tube reading this on your phone? Tick, tick… Or the hours spent trying to unfuck what it’s done to your book of holiday snaps? Tick, tick, tick…

And we do this to ourselves, no-one compels us. We do it because we have convinced ourselves we’re being productive, or that more choice is, obviously, better.

So here I am, writing this, staring at a screen. Tick… tick… tick…

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What a fuss

London

Media – old, new and undecided – is flapping about like a turkey that survived Christmas. There’s a new social media chick in the neighborhood, and her name is Vero.

We’ve all heard it before: We’re giving power back to the people! We’re not going to use you as blind and willing canon fodder, as fat sacks of data to be bought and sold and traded with whomever we wish. We’re different!

We’ll see. To be fair to her, Vero has started off well if a little shakily; but then that’s part of the fun of being in at the start. No ads, we’re told, and we’ll be trusted with a timeline un-fucked by cash hungry algorithms. She’s not a free date though; Vero expects to be paid by her users. Which is fair enough. And her first million dates get a free ride for life, so get in. I’m told a girl never forgets her first million.

And yes, your intrepid correspondent has taken the plunge. Will Vero remain true to her virtuous vows or sell herself to be gang-banged by the cynically grinning social mafia thugs? In the words of Mr Fats Waller: one never knows, does one?

Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you some lies

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