'Cause evrybody does it-

Ya know what we don’t hear enough of? People criticizing the internet.

And I don’t mean kiddy porn. And I don’t mean corporations whose employees are spending all day on Facebook or eBay. No, I mean we don’t hear enough criticism of the stuff on the web that we’re supposed to like. This must be bad for democracy.

Social networking. WooHoo! I was asked to go to a party a few months ago. Not asked in any personal way, mind you – asked by mass email – and not really a party – a work related affair. My friends rolled their eyes and grumbled about how asked me how I was getting there; I said I wasn’t.

“Why not?” one asked? I was confused by the question, so I retreated to what I thought would be safer ground.

“Why would I?”

My friend said I could see… a whole list of people I barely knew – some woman I had a class with 3 years ago and hadn’t talked to since, some guy none of us liked – as if this was a good thing, and she called it, “You know. Social Networking.”

I joined Facebook because I knew a friend had created a profile on Facebook, and I wanted his email address. So I could invite him to a party. I don’t mean to say that I hate the site. I’ve used it to distribute virtual drinks (via the distribute virtual drinks application) and to become a fan of Pabst Blue Ribbon (a beer I like to drink) and I have read multiple reports and seen numerous pictures of former students getting and being drunk.

More even than virtual alcohol, the great promise of the internet was in the promotion of democratic ideals. Everyone would come to have free and easy access to accurate information from which they could construct their own realities and truths, and those truths would set them free. Armed with the facts they could get outside of the dominant ideologies that convinced them to vote against their self-interests, cast off the shackles of the repressive anglo-male dominance and do whatever it is people do once people do that. Which, apparently, is put up pictures of your friends doing beer bongs and twitter to the world existential questions like, ‘why haven’t I read that book?’

I just posted a witty comment on a friend’s Facebook status. She’s updated her status and failed to publicly recognize my comment. Now I feel bad. At least I thought it was witty.

Can one load most pages with a dial-up connection anymore? If not, who can’t afford broad band? And are those the people who need access to info?

I voted. On Facebook I joined the ‘remind your friends to vote’ thingy, and altho I suspect it was really more a ‘tell the world you’re a good person because you voted’ thingy at least it was trying. I’m sure without all the searching for old classmates that’s now possible, many people might otherwise have forgotten about the election.

It’s the unexamined nature of all this that irks me. Ya know why everybody does this? ’cause everybody does this. Let’s hope none of the early adopters jumps off a cliff.