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The Current State of the Internet
I
am one of the few who can call themselves Cybernauts. We were
around long before the internet hype, and long before american
online's destruction of the world in which we thrived . It was a
wilderness, a vast frontier, one that was untamed and harsh, and
we liked it that way. We were the mountain men of the 20th
century. I wondered my way into the world of the computer after
getting my first modem. It was a lowly 1200 baud modem, but at
the time, a 2400 was top of the line and a 14.4 modem was all but
a dream. I found the number to a BBS in the local phone
book. From there, mainly through trial and error, I found a list
to other BBS's in the area. From there, my life, or more
correctly, the life of Hick Smith, my new identity, changed
forever. I found local Major BBS chat. It was a place where I
could meet those like me. At the time there was no real point and
click when it comes to a modem. In the old cyberculture,
knowledge really was power. Everyone helped everyone out, there
was no competition, there was no cliques. In cyberspace, everyone
was equal, all shapeless bodiless entities, molded only by their
personalities.
It was a peaceful existence, a blissful anarchy, molded only by etiquette and unwritten taboos. However, this wasn't good enough for the layman. The nine year old down the street who throws mud at you, the idiots at school who ask for your help with homework, and the adult who's already too suck in his ways to learn the language of cyberspace were jealous. They were jealous of our power, our freedom, our knowledge. So they joined together, and by overwhelming numbers destroyed the world we tried to perserve. No longer were the lazy weeded out, now, you can be proficient on the internet and not know how to type. Everything in point and click, no thinking, no understanding, just mind numbing clicking.
Under the banner of American OnLine, and other commercial outlets, the internet was cheapened, and trivialized. No longer was the internet a free exchange of ideas. Now the internet is like trying to find worthwhile reading in a newspaper advertisement section. Every product has a web site, every site has a sponsor. The internet was more like highways, a connection of roads with interesting scenery and road side cafe's with character. Now, the information superhighway has more billboards and road signs, and the local diner is replaced with fast food. Once you could hop into these places and you could go in, talk with people, and actually share experiences, and really know someone over the years. Now if you walk into a chat room all you hear is " hey baby, wanna fuck " like some cheap singles bar where there's no such thing as a bad pick up line. People no longer have dignity, no longer take responsibility for their actions on the internet.
There is no taste left on the internet, there is no class left. The anarchy that actually survived and thrived is now being twisted an manipulated by large groups of people, under the banners of AOL, or Microsoft, or other large corporations who's only interest is their profits. The internet is no longer an anarchy, where ideas are given freely, and information is exchanged. Now, it's a pure democratic capitalist economy, where mob rule is the norm, and there appears to be nothing wrong with selling information.
Questions, comments or critical hate mail? By all means please send them to me, Hick Smith at http://www.cyberjunkie.com/hicksmith