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Originally Posted by nomadicfollower
It seems alot of "older" (for you old people's sake) are attracted to this forum and perhaps enjoy the breadth of the internet, but I, a young-un, see it as a horrible sin that I should subject myself to this world - hence my lack of participation. I wonder if this queer coincidence spawns out of aged people's search for ease of use, or my distaste for all those children who should not be subjected to this...place. First hand I see all of, what I believe to be, the ill-effects of prolonged internet use and thus curse its existence.
What is the internet's appeal to you?
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I just wrote this the other day in a huff and then deleted it.
Here it is again in excerpted form.
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Believe it or not, I tried to keep this brief. As it is, it's way too lengthy. In a nutshell, it's essentially a somewhat goofy "we can do better" speech.
What I view as the primary obstacle is that, on the whole,
worthwhileness (I realize my term is nebulous) just doesn't seem to really be in the mix these days. At least not as much as it should be present.
A quality of worthwhileness in ones' posts smacks of too much effort and too much of a belief in the future. And apparently, that just isn't cool.
And thus it isn't cool, in turn, for myself get upset at things that others have little to no conception what in the hell is so upsetting about it.
And what I mean is that people are generally apathetic and conduct themselves with a certain sense of hopelessness. How else is one to explain that the regular members are entertained by a message board such as this? There are extreme bright spots for sure, and they keep me coming back. And sure, there are a lot of minor (in the ultimate sense) reasons that can be sufficiently enumerated why people routinely post. But please allow me to explain in a few admittedly oblique words that I'm referring to life's largest questions, you know...reality.
Sure, for instance, I'll laugh at Seinfeld. The writing is funny and the characters are entertaining. The characters, at times, do (mostly borderline) despicable things. But Seinfeld is a television comedy. And comedy has its place in life. A hugely important place. It has its place on a message board.
Please don't be too disturbed if I shift tone a little, but if I wanted a preponderance of excessive comedy content or excessive cynicism then I would visit an appropriate website or get the entertainment from another medium altogether. But hey, that's just me, the somewhat reluctant idealist.
(And Seinfeld was, in many ways, a springboard for the predominant "cringe factor" comedies proliferating today.)
The internet was, of course, originally conceptualized as a vehicle for the rapid distribution and sharing of information. Inevitably, entertainment, of course, to a large degree has taken over the medium.
I maintain, however, that, say, an internet message board's paramount function is facilitate the communication of concepts and ideas. One must acknowledge that on some level at least that a message board has the possibility to be such a vehicle at times.
This message board is, of course, a fan site for Sonic Youth. many of the posts naturally tend toward an affinty for a certain aesthetic sensibility accordingly. Often posts will be within that framework of context. One of the advantages of participating in an online internet message board such as this one is that it provides, at least in an ideal sense, an online community of Sonic Youth fans. And it follows, that it should, at least (again) in an ideal sense, be a some sort of sounding board for ideas and creative discourse. And, at least on some level, we get that here. But far too often the standard seems to be who can act the most aloof or the most hip, and who can put on the most attractive mask. The tragedy being that since people are not being themselves in the anonymity of the internet, there is not a whole lot of chance from learning on much more than ultimately a superficial level.
Now these don't have to be grand ideas expressed grandly all the time. I may be an idealist in this case, but I'm not completely off my rocker. Great ideas can be expressed in even the most basic of terms. And they bleed though someone's genuineness of expression.
What's troubling, and I am, again admittedly apparently far too much of an idealist, is that the prevailing point of view from what you read on an internet message board goes back to the general apathy and a certain sense of hopelessness I wrote of earlier. And I state this in as far as people seek not real connection, but rather relish in impish detachment.
Allow me to build on the ills of apathy and loss of hope and add loss of shame. That's what I see here constantly. It's like the dildo copter beng flown in Garry Kasparov's face as he's trying to be the best man he can.
The internet is certainly an entertainment medium, but it's a medium for many other things including, of course, information...real information that isn't on the news. It's just very sad to see yet another generation "blow it."
And to collectively fail now, especially at this point in time, is most ill-advised. I hope to communicate a sense of the urgency here. Those who I'll refer to as simply the "historical revisionists" have proven how mighty they are. Only education and communication can possibly have an impact on these ultimately dire circumstances. At the very least, an even more sickeningly homogenized world looms ominously on the horizon, and one where human rights count for significantly less.