Saturday, January 10, 2015

Internet Elitism

i'm sick and fucking tired of people on the internet. mostly people i don't know, mostly in areas i shouldn't be looking for any sense of a discussion, anything with structure, purpose. youtube comments, social media reposts, large internet forums... the internet has created this culture where people like to appear better than other people. i don't know if it's self-esteem, or cause it looks cool, or because they're immature, or what, but god damn it's annoying.

and yeah, okay. let's all listen to the guy talking down to people on the internet by talking on the internet and trying to look better than other people. yeah. i see the paradox here. but the difference is, i'm willing to talk about it sensibly. i'd argue about this, about the nature of this. this isn't a knee-jerk reaction about how people like things i don't. i like to think i'm better than that, which isn't saying much.

but that really is the root of it, right? people like things that others don't, and that makes people upset. example, bioshock infinite. no, you don't have to love it, or even like it. but to say that it's the WORST game ever with a terrible story that makes no sense and boring mechanics(which i've seen been done) ? like, sure it's fine to have your own opinion and everything but you have to know that using absolutes as hyperboles makes you come off as a small angry person about things that are not important. but really, this is not really anything new, humans have been doing shit like this forever. the thing about being online is that people are anonymous, people don't have to take any flack for being a shitty person who says shitty things on the internet. you share the popular opinion or you get shit on. or, you share the "i hate the popular opinion" opinion, in which flocks of people who didn't think that x was as good as people say it is agree that logically it is the worst thing since different x.

go right now to any popular music song on youtube and look at the comments. how many root comments can you see that aren't just terrible, terrible things? go to popular rap or pop music. how many times do you see people comment about how "it's not real music" and/or how "music from y years ago was so much better?" how many people are in the age range targeted by this music? how many people say music from before their date of birth was better?

kids are getting on the internet, there's no stopping that. kids are gonna wanna look cool to impress other people, people they don't know, people older than them. really no getting around that either. but jesus fucking christ, somebody needs to tell them that the people they're trying to impress don't care. kids are validating their opinions in internet points: how many ups they're getting from random people.

and i'll admit. i tend to do it too. video of mine gets a larger amount of views? i feel great. comment somewhere gets upvoted/favorited/liked? it's a bit of an ego boost. but at least i can come to terms with at the end of the day, i still have integrity. i'm aware of some of the things that i do. i don't stoop to posting cliche things that people will agree with. i don't pander to people. i try to do what i want, what i like.

so what can we do about all of this? where's the solution? how do we fix it? i don't really know. maybe try to see things how i do. maybe make it known that it's all stupid and people shouldn't try so hard to look cool to anonymous people on the internet. avoid knee-jerk statements, doing things to incite anger, and instead, do things that you actually feel are necessary, things that are meaningful. or express your own opinion on it if it's different than mine in a way that's more than just shouting. get people talking, get people thinking.

will this happen? of course not, this is the internet.

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