Office by Alex Penny
A blog for people who want to read my thoughts.
Can we please make Pik-emote.com? Please?
I apologize for my lackluster showing this semester. I’m sure one and all would check back here multiple times a day in anticipation of me sharing some new mind nuggets. Allow me to make it up to you now…
The semester thus far has pretty much been defined by The Game Show Network (GSN), College Government, and abstinence. The third an implicit result of the first two givens probably. Other compelling subplots included a debate on time brought about by Watchmen. The way computers can store so much information ruined my perception of space. These sessions combatting preconceived notions about time and space were then applied to the question “How long does it take to walk from Hillside to the Union?” This is now referred to as the infamous 8-11 debate. The topic from this semester closest to my heart though has to be how the internet is singlehandedly keeping humanity alive, while destroying it at the same time.
As a child raised on a half dozen Terminator-Matrix movies it has been instilled in me that the question isn’t “Are machines going to turn on humans?” But rather, “WHEN are machines going to turn on humans?” You can call me John Connor, because I’m saying the revolution has already begun!
Before going on let it be known that even though I’m criticizing the internet, there is no one I know that is addicted to computers, technology or the web in a worse way than I am. I’m RIGHTING this WRITE now on a blog (<—Think about it.) My point isn’t that the internet is evil, it’s that the internet is incredibly powerful and can be used for good and bad. Take for example water. When used correctly water can cool you on a hot day, it can make plants grow, it can fill water balloons, and it can cleanse you. When used incorrectly it can start electrical fires and flood New Orleans.
This picture illustrates the power of the internet on a very topical level but it makes my point:
After my brother jokingly posted that he got into Princeton and then in less than an hour over 30 people responded with congrats and awe. My mom’s friend in Conneticuit saw it and called the house in something of a panic to find out what had happened. This stupid rouse caused such a stir in such a short amount of time that it actually spilled out beyond the confines of facebook and into the real world. This example is wholly insignificant and meaningless really, but it shows the information sharing power that the internet wields.
So what do we do with this power? We twitter. First off “twittering” sounds like a sex act. ”Twittering” conjures up the image of a man (or a woman if that’s what you’re into) giving butterfly kisses to a clit. But I digress…We’re given the power to share any information, any idea, any belief or message and we limit ourselves to 120 character tidbits about an event that we “carefully” craft while the event is going on, effectively removing ourselves from the moment. The image equivalent of this is when a person requests to see a picture that was taken seconds after it was taken. Twittering is simply a dumbed down facebook, which only makes communication even less personal than it already was. What is the next step after Twitter? Pik-emote.com? Pik-emote.com would be a site where a person creates an account and then summarizes their thoughts with a set selection of icons. For example Zach Moskowitz [Silhouette of a bed] [Sun] [Airplane] [Barn and Silo] would mean “Zach is going to sleep until morning and then taking a flight to Florida.” However the site did not provide a suitable Pik-mote for Florida, and I thought the Barn was close enough.
Twitter is going to stick around just long enough until we are semi-illiterate and the only way we can spread ideas is via twits or twats or whatever. Then twitter is going disappear and our helpless race is going to be enslaved by our robo-overlords.
Another great example of this “dumbification” can be found at the ever popular fmylife.com. I posed the question recently why did FML (Fuck My Life) become such a phenomenon when FTW (Fuck The World) was around long before. I realized the answer to this lies in the dual nature of FTW. FTW in internet lingo can mean both “Fuck The World” and “For The Win,” two phrases that are pretty much opposites of each other. If one were to say “Clay Aiken FTW” you would need to inquire further as to whether the speaker truly despises the American Idol runner up or if they are a fan. This was FTWs fatal flaw.
In these FMLs, people submit a sentence or two of something hilariously awful that happened to them. This, in a matter of months has ruined what people think is misfortune, while at the same time dumbified how they express it. ”Today I spilled water on the kitchen floor. TWICE! FML” is not a legitimate reason for you to fuck your life. Should World War II and the era of FML overlapped I would have accepted “Today after living in an attic for 2 years some woman ratted out my family and I to the Nazis. FML” as a Fuck My Life. That second ones a little more deserving of an FML than the spilled water or having ones sneakers scoffed, me thinks.
Far be it from me to say what the correct way of using the internet is because that would make me a pretentious prick. I’m just saying which is better this short piece I wrote over an hour spent on the treadmill or if I just threw up a facebook status that said “TWITTER SUX!”
