In my imagination “The Internet” descended from the deep reaches of the universe and settled upon our planet like a mist. We began to interact with this powerful and mysterious entity without any real understanding of how it was going to effect us, or even if it was going to effect us. Most of us just assumed it was going to make things better, amplifying potential in a good, rather than harmful way.
However, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. The astonishing gifts we’ve enjoyed have come with tremendous penalties, the primary of which might be a massive, unacknowledged mental health crisis.
I don’t know about you, but I have never seen as many declarations of anxiety and depression in my life as I now see on a regular basis online. It’s not at all uncommon for me to have multiple chat windows open at once, each one a conversation with a friend in crisis. This is highly subjective of course, and that people now have the means and social sanction to communicate their feelings might be something to celebrate, or, as my intuition suggests, it could be something in the disembodied interactions we’ve been reducing ourselves to that’s causing this articulated spike in mental health problems.
It seems that the more we inhabit the abstracted realm of The Internet, the more certain we become of our beliefs. This is highly ironic to me, because we all know that amidst the spin and swirl of disinformation, fake news and uncanny algorithms, we should be as skeptical of claims to truth and certainty as we’ve ever been.
Take the White Power symbols that have been in the news.
As you may be aware, the symbol that you always thought meant “OK,” might now mean White Power.
This transition took place about a year ago on 4Chan, where it was conceived as a conscious lie. What I mean by that is that it wasn’t a White Power sign. The intent was to take an existing symbol and change it’s meaning, thus confusing the public and media and further eroding the idea of public trust.
Regardless, once this meme was in the blood stream there was no way to know what the use of the symbol meant. Did the person know it was a white power sign? Were they just saying “OK!?” Were they making a joke? Were they communicating racist ideology?
The first instance of this that I saw was of White House Advisor Zina Bash during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
Based on this image, people thought she was a White Supremacist.
Bash is of Mexican and Jewish heritage, and this photo that was widely circulated was a high resolution screen capture of a video, so she was in motion, not in a fixed, posed position. Claims that she was communicating a racist message seemed to me ambiguous at best. But people I know, like and respect saw this photograph, and others like it,
as crystal clear evidence of racist intent. Where I saw nothing but ambiguity, they saw none.
It felt like looking at the Neckar’s Cube, like some optical illusion was at play and the mechanics of our brains were prohibiting us from seeing the same thing.
There was simply no consensus on what was real. We were living two different stories when looking at the images. Where I was looking at what was directly in front of me, my friends were looking at circumstance, or perhaps subtext, seeing this single image as part of a much greater and evolving narrative.
Perhaps I am antique in my thinking, but when I see stories like these, I look for a kind of “courtroom proof.” If I have doubt, I am unwilling to prosecute the reputation and livelihood of the person being judged, even if they might still be suspicious to me. Maybe that makes me unwilling to act, and if so that is a sin I will one day have to answer for. Regardless, online a “thing” is true if it has momentum, if it supports the continuance of a passionately held belief, not if it meets some “clinical” standard of proof.
As our shared sense of truth and morality fall away– and disagreement leads to suspicion, if not flat-out contempt– we fearlessly share our certainties, but shamefully keep our uncertainties sheltered within, anxious that we’ll be attacked rather than supported by those whom we would love, and that, well that’s making us all feel a little jumpy and untethered.
]]>Here is one of the columns I just found while cleaning out an old box:
Q: There’s a girl in my Latin class who I’m absolutely nuts about. Should I tell her?
A: NO, THERE IS NO WAY ON EARTH THAT YOU SHOULD TELL HER!! (Is it Marie-France Lapoint? She is CRAZY hot, especially in those green cords!!! Drool!!!)
Look, this girl who may or may not be Marie-France Lapoint, is probably completely out of your league and dating a guy who lives in Europe or goes to university in the States. You should spare yourself the humiliation of rejection and just wait for her to notice you and your totally cool sweater.
It’s not always easy to do this, but it’s ESSENTIAL that you try. Look at her all the time, but pretend like she’s not important to you because you’re popular and your family is rich. Your indifference will make her think there’s something wrong with her, and this insecurity will probably make her try to be nice to you, and when this happens you should still play it really cool, like you would never have a crush on somebody like her but you’ll talk to her in boring, old Latin, and then when she gets really, really hammered at a party you should make your move!! The master has spoken.
Q: My parents want me to take Computer Science but I think it’s a stupid waste of time. What do you think?
A: First of all, parents are useless. They’re completely embarrassing and don’t understand anything! Of course Computer Science is a waste of time!! Fortran and Cobol?
They sound like robot names! Only nerds take that class and they’re not learning anything important or fun. Rest assured, the world is not going to be run by Cobol and Fortran. However, I do think that computers are going to be really important, one day giving us instant access to pictures of naked women (Kim Basinger and Jamie Lee Curtis!!) and sports scores.
Computers will be like libraries, only they’ll be small and with you all the time, like on Star Trek, but things are going to move so quickly in the future that studying something like Fortran in 1983 isn’t going to do you any good at all. Ignore your parents and take gym or something cool and remember, don’t hangout with any phonies!
Q: If I want to appear of age in a bar, what drink should I order?
A: A Screwdriver. And wear a Harris Tweed hat.
The master has spoken!
]]>He couldn’t be stopped, his dick had to be seen.
Of course, politicians have long been engaged in reckless, sex scandal drenched behaviour. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia and robust anti-gay activist has actually been celebrated for his aggressive sexual posturing, with his PR team strategically releasing sex room chat transcripts to the public in an effort to bolster his macho image by “gay-baiting,” a practice common in Russia, a nation now dealing with the fallout from Putin’s new anti-gay laws.
Here is one of those transcripts:
Bear60: Tell me! What is it you are wearing!!
Twink23: Black leather chaps and a wife beater. Also, I’m hard.
Bear60: You must prove this to me! I demand it!! You are submissive!!
Bear60: Ha! I am not gay and now you have sent me a photograph of your hard penis!! The joke is on you, fag-boy!!
Twink23: I like it when you talk like that, you want some more, don’t you?
Bear60: It is a nice penis you have, strong. It is a shame you waste it on men and not women!
Twink23: I would waste it on you.
Bear60: Tell me Twink, what sort of men do you like? Do you like Russian men?
Twink23: Oh, you know I do. I love the HARD consonants of the language, I love everything HARD about Russians—their lives, their hands, their dark secrets.
Bear60: Maybe it is one of your homosexual fantasies to imagine sex with a powerful Russian man who was once a killer in the KGB!!?? Perhaps that excites you Twink23!?
Twink23: Tell me more, Bear, tell me more!
Bear60: This man, he would take you roughly because he hates that you have unnatural sex! And to show you his anger and disgust he would tear off all your clothes, and it would just be the two of you in the secluded barn that had been sheltering you from the storm! Because you are weak, you would demand to be punished sexually for the things you have done and the Russian Bear would humble you with great force and beauty, and then your skin would glisten and emit a satisfied and loving rosy hue!
Bear60: Ah, Twink, I see I have tricked you into sending me another abberant photograph of you! Ha, you are a fool, but I see you must workout! A lot. I also work out, for I am a very vigorous and heterosexual man. Do you know where it might be possible for me to trick a black homosexual into sending me a picture of his penis and muscles? Maybe the three of us could chat?
