Virtual Insanity
(With a little real insanity on the side)
I just turned 25 this year and realized that several pop culture icons, classics, and events shared this silver anniversary with me. I also realized that my age has alloted me the ability to see the inception of several societal mainstays. I was there when the personal computer became a household item. I was around when the concept internet was conceived and then executed. I was around to see dial up become DSL, become T1,2,3, become cable, and then all go wireless. I witnessed the birth of social networking and was actually responsible for my college campus joining the original Facebook network. I have seen all of the evolution of the web and its users and have seen the media engine push it all. So it should be no surprise that after experiencing all of these births how depressing seeing a death must be for me. I don't mean the death of a person, i mean the death of collective practical sense(it started being common years ago) in society.
With the emergence of social networking in its current state, we have become a society of drones. It really scares me sometimes how quickly fallacies, trends, and nonsense spread on the internets. Most of it is due to a concept that I sum up into this saying. "Anything said out loud in public is automatically and indefensibly true." Now imagine if you are a sprightly young woman walking the corridors of your local mall, you are approached by a homely gentleman who is draped in a gaudy clown suit like ensemble with some famous logo emphatically displayed on it. He is rude and obnoxious and soliciting intercourse, you being a woman of elevated morals, discriminating taste of course reject the advances and proceed to walk away. Now before you are 30 ft away the young male proclaims. "Shorty in the leather boots there is a stuck up b*tch" You turn to speak and realized you are powerless, no matter what you do his opinion will be believed and based on your actions potentially supported. Fear not because I am in the crowd and proceed to decapitate the knave while not staining my pinstripe suit with his heart gunk. Now this is an extreme hypothetical, but things like this happen all the time. especially now that we have the web. The internet, and social networking is like alcohol. It doesn't turn you into a person you are not, it is not a mood amplifier, or a manipulator of your psyche. Like alcohol the internet is an amplifier turned to 11! It makes you a Bruce Banner turned Incredible Hulk version of yourself. Without all of the things that make humans naturally socially awkward(cowardice,insecurity,social class systems,cliques etc) the social networking scene is populated by those who have no social skills(trolls) or networking skills.
There are so many symptoms of the human condition that the internet or specifically the social aspect of it, actually worsen. I will proceed to describe (a few of) them.
Paranoia
Something that I suffer from in the real world, and try not to bring into the virtual one. Paranoia is a true sickness. On the net though it can be debilitating. People will not act, they won't speak. They will simply not do anything because they are paranoid of the ramifications. These are the people on FB who want no pictures tagged to them, who delete comments and open no messages. These people think that everyone is out to get them, you will also find them with a twitter DM outbox full of "was that last tweet about me" messages
Stalkers
Everyone that has ever been interested in a person of the opposite(or ocassionally same) sex has participated in this activity to some small degree. Only a select few of us have taken it to the level by which the activity becomes illegal. However on the internet where peoples privacy has been deemed public property EXTREME levels of stalking take place on a regular basis. Profile watching, lurking, creeping, tweetwatching, are all terms used to describe a group of creepy people who clandestinely focus on a person profile like well a STALKER!
Perverts
Every man by age 12 has learned at least 1000 things he can say to a woman that could get him slapped. That is considering that these things or their variations have been said face to face. when dealing with face to screen interaction, it becomes a bit more difficult to develop this same sense of social filter. A pervert will ask a woman he just "met" to show him her "tits" or gtfoh. He will show her pictures of his penis, he will make lewd comments and be generally graphic and vulgar. They let the pervert get away with it because he not directly talking to anyone face to face. However one day he will and will have never learned to do so politely!
Philosophers/Theologians
If you give a speaker(especially a preacher) a mic they will do just that. If you give someone a podium or a stage, or even worse an audience you are in for a world of trouble. Well guess what the internet is.....it's the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with full media coverage, vip tickets, and stadium sound. It is ridiculous how a person assumes they have said something deep because they over complicate a simple worn down cliche. It is more a sad commentary on our society that we have become so mentally diluted that these clowns actually get to have a following. It pains me not to say something to these clowns, but a wise man once told me "wise men should never argue with fools, because from a distance no one can tell the difference" and on the net, everyone is at a distance.
Narcissists
I don't think Narcissus himself was in love with himself as some of those on the net are. See our ancient Greek friend never had the chance to build virtual monuments to himself, or post things only because they will draw him attention. Whether it be photos or ridiculous verbiage. People have actually complained about their experiences on social networking sites because no one has been paying them any attention. Now I could understand this gripe being legitimate when the net was young, and there were less than a million users worldwide(around 0.006% of the population) and not really many opportunities for them to network, now there are people with web access who don't have access to running water and there is a networking site for speakers of over 60 languages. All i'm saying is we have options. We don't have to pay you attention.
Groupies
For as long as there will be groups or individuals deemed important in civilized society, then there will always be groupies. Groupies are a strange sect in real life but online they are a dominant force. Contemporary society is ruled by #Team some dam body and if you are not down with the team then you get attacked. Its quite an interesting dynamic. The way I always understood groupies they were low on the totem pole, but on the net they seem to have flipped things and have become the group of importance themselves.
There are various other groups of psycho internet personalities and I actually originally intended to open this post up to submissions from my fellow net denizens. If you read this blog and would like to describe a type of internet creep you can't stand hit me in the comments and I will include your addition and site you as a source! Now let me leave you with a prophetic 90's tune by my good man James Kay aka Jamiroquai
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