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November 9, 2009
web 2.0: the great asshole emboldener
I owe the Internet a lot. Just between 1) my being able to telecommute and 2) Amazon Prime, the Internet has made living where I live, well, livable. It has made my lifestyle of choice possible.
And yet I truly, deeply resent the Internet.
Part of that lifestyle, you see, is the near total elimination of assholes from my daily existence. I work only for friends. I see only who I want, which many days is just the UPS guy (see Amazon Prime, above). Oh sure, there's the occasional clod at the grocery store, the occasional cop who's King Shit with a Badge, the occasional drunk in a bar, the occasional Percy peeking in my window. But for the most part, if I don't want to know you exist, I don't know you exist.
Except for that 10 year-old kid on X-Box Live who's spewing bigotry at strangers.
Or the guy who commented on the YouTube clip of the moon landing "WHITE MEN PUT US ON THE MOON. Remember to thank a white man today!" (The Internet: the emboldening white hood of the 21st century.)
Or the great mass of morons on both the right and left, perpetually searching for someone to validate what they already believe, polluting my news with their intellectual glory-holing.
Or the hate groups at their fringes.
Or pretty much any attention-whoring illiterate on a discussion board, misspelling his insults of others' intelligence.
Yes, I love my anonymity. I just hate theirs.
posted by john at 11:24 AM • permalink