Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Today's Blog is about Blogs and opinions and the internet.
Why do we have them? It's a very interesting day when people can pre-publish their opinions as if they matter. I mean, I'm not against the idea; I just started my own Blog--goodness knows I'm one to jump on e-bandwagons. I just wonder where this bandwagon is headed.
People have long held opinion pages on the internet, but is it serving any purpose--and if it is, is it serving society, or just our ego-driven consumer selves? Blah, I don't know, and further don't know what I'm complaining about: I work at a huge multi-national publishing corporation, sitting on an aeron chair and drinking free hot-cocoa all day. I just wonder if we're all going to post our opinions, doesn't that kind of flood the market of the internet with a lot of potentially misinformed and uneducated opinions?
I suppose newsgroups and billboards have been open places for opinions and gossip since the beginning of the internet boom, but blogs are different, aren't they? They seem to carry a heavier tone. Famous people, artists, musicians, even some politicians have their diaries, notes and ideas on blogs, as well as grad students, college students, political analysts and even anarchist high-schoolers. The free-speech possibilities are endless.
But therein lies the possible problem, as well. (Insert Melodramatic pause with foreboding musical interlude) There are some opinions that though legally protected are perhaps not so great to have in such an easily attainable medium as the internet. I'm not just talking about pornography or the boy-love organization. Those are typical sorts of things that parents know to look out for. There are of course the websites devoted to drug use, bigotry and anti-government violence, but those have monitors from the powers that be--I'm personally not worried about the Anarchist's Cookbook being on the web, maybe I should be, but I'm not.
What I'm really worried about is sites like the one I heard about devoted to Cutters. (insert another dramatic pause and musical break) Cutters, from what I'm told are girls who cut themselves intentionally to release the stress of their lives. I'm told that it's a rather common thing and that even some girls with seemingly normal psychologies engage in this activity. The site, which I don't have the URL posted for, for fear of spreading it around, but I know it WAS out there rather recently. Of course, this isn't a blog site, but there are postings glorifying the feeling one gets from self-injury, and that scares me. I have a younger sister who has on occasion been depressed and I would be terrified to learn that she ever participated in this kind of activity. It even bothers me the fact that she could even read that it felt good--like the rest of us, teenagers are impressionable.
I dunno. I'm kind of back and forth about the internet. It's a great tool, but it opens itself wide open for all kinds of misuse. The musical Avenue Q has a song called 'The Internet is for Porn' and they're right, certainly, but that's the least of societies worries--or at least should be. I recently heard of a bill board that said something to the effect of 'for valentines day, give your wife this gift: Stop looking at porn on the internet.'
Now, to those of us who aren't too religious and under 30, that's pretty freaking hilarious, but I suppose to some it's worth putting on a bill-board--And that makes sense! The jobless rate, climbing taxes for the middle class, the slashing of veterans' benefits and the growing uninsured population in this country aren't really worth awareness dollars as long as we get those men to stop lookin' at that porn and start looking at their wives. (On a personal and pseudo-political note, it really bugs me that some people think that all of America's problems can be fixed by fixing America's families. It's a two-way street, and I'm sure I'll write about it some time, but it FRIES me that people can be so loudly obtuse)
Of course this can't be my final word on this, and it's certainly not THE final word--who the hell am I anyway? But, what I hope is that I read this a few weeks from now and have some more questions. I like those more than answers most of the time. Do you?
Why do we have them? It's a very interesting day when people can pre-publish their opinions as if they matter. I mean, I'm not against the idea; I just started my own Blog--goodness knows I'm one to jump on e-bandwagons. I just wonder where this bandwagon is headed.
People have long held opinion pages on the internet, but is it serving any purpose--and if it is, is it serving society, or just our ego-driven consumer selves? Blah, I don't know, and further don't know what I'm complaining about: I work at a huge multi-national publishing corporation, sitting on an aeron chair and drinking free hot-cocoa all day. I just wonder if we're all going to post our opinions, doesn't that kind of flood the market of the internet with a lot of potentially misinformed and uneducated opinions?
I suppose newsgroups and billboards have been open places for opinions and gossip since the beginning of the internet boom, but blogs are different, aren't they? They seem to carry a heavier tone. Famous people, artists, musicians, even some politicians have their diaries, notes and ideas on blogs, as well as grad students, college students, political analysts and even anarchist high-schoolers. The free-speech possibilities are endless.
But therein lies the possible problem, as well. (Insert Melodramatic pause with foreboding musical interlude) There are some opinions that though legally protected are perhaps not so great to have in such an easily attainable medium as the internet. I'm not just talking about pornography or the boy-love organization. Those are typical sorts of things that parents know to look out for. There are of course the websites devoted to drug use, bigotry and anti-government violence, but those have monitors from the powers that be--I'm personally not worried about the Anarchist's Cookbook being on the web, maybe I should be, but I'm not.
What I'm really worried about is sites like the one I heard about devoted to Cutters. (insert another dramatic pause and musical break) Cutters, from what I'm told are girls who cut themselves intentionally to release the stress of their lives. I'm told that it's a rather common thing and that even some girls with seemingly normal psychologies engage in this activity. The site, which I don't have the URL posted for, for fear of spreading it around, but I know it WAS out there rather recently. Of course, this isn't a blog site, but there are postings glorifying the feeling one gets from self-injury, and that scares me. I have a younger sister who has on occasion been depressed and I would be terrified to learn that she ever participated in this kind of activity. It even bothers me the fact that she could even read that it felt good--like the rest of us, teenagers are impressionable.
I dunno. I'm kind of back and forth about the internet. It's a great tool, but it opens itself wide open for all kinds of misuse. The musical Avenue Q has a song called 'The Internet is for Porn' and they're right, certainly, but that's the least of societies worries--or at least should be. I recently heard of a bill board that said something to the effect of 'for valentines day, give your wife this gift: Stop looking at porn on the internet.'
Now, to those of us who aren't too religious and under 30, that's pretty freaking hilarious, but I suppose to some it's worth putting on a bill-board--And that makes sense! The jobless rate, climbing taxes for the middle class, the slashing of veterans' benefits and the growing uninsured population in this country aren't really worth awareness dollars as long as we get those men to stop lookin' at that porn and start looking at their wives. (On a personal and pseudo-political note, it really bugs me that some people think that all of America's problems can be fixed by fixing America's families. It's a two-way street, and I'm sure I'll write about it some time, but it FRIES me that people can be so loudly obtuse)
Of course this can't be my final word on this, and it's certainly not THE final word--who the hell am I anyway? But, what I hope is that I read this a few weeks from now and have some more questions. I like those more than answers most of the time. Do you?
