My Internet Year in Review.

(Hey  it is one way to get to a point I have made in the past.   Humor me and follow.)

My hate - hate relationship with the Internet continues.  I view the Net primarily  as the delivery conduit for data, and what is still a fucked up, inadequate means of communication.  (But Skype is pretty good shit.)

Honestly, as much as I am not a fan of typing to communicate, I am a bigger fan of cell phone texting than Net texting.  Mainly, that is because if I am cell texting it's with someone I know in the real world.  Not some lying ass  fucking  Net Personality.  Turns out I have finally changed my cell plan to accomodate the increased  text traffic  I am having.  It's just the way things are now. 

True,  I blog here, still.  This is where I vent.  And I am something of a FB whore.  Mostly that is me forwarding the fun pics and ecards I see.  And posting video of songs I like.  And some lower level venting.  And yes, keeping up with my peeps.  And something like 90% of the peeps on my friends list there, I already know in the real world.  So I am not really having to deal with the one particularly much sucking aspect of the Net I fucking hate;  lying assed fucking Net Personalities.

And great news for me  this past year!  The one last remaining Net Discussion Forum I participated on, abruptly closed months ago.  And I mostly don't miss it.  Granted, I have to live without my favorite pet peeve related activity.  My peeve is redneck racists (getting really particular there.)  And the activity is calling out these racist rednecks for being racists.  But honesty.  That really hasn't been giving me much pleasure  anyway.  So  Bub-bye to that.  The only thing about not being on a board anymore that I actually  miss?  That would be the fun I used to get from bragging about parts of life to some obnoxious rednecks, just to enjoy their demented, idiotic reactions.  But for that?  Message Boards are some of the most fucking creepy  shit on line, that does not involve fetish sex.  Or cults.

Now I am sure there are some insane, fucking creepy motherfuckers out there,  who if they learned they were dying might be thinking,"Oh shit  I wish I had more time . . . for my Internet . .  (fill in the blank.)"  I could feel sorry for anyone like that.  In theory.  But I think they are so fucked in the head they don't deserve even if only my pity.

If I knew I was about to die, the last thing I would be regretting was losing  Net time.  I would be pining for time spent with family  and  (real world) friends.  And going to the ballet,  and opera, and enjoying other real world art things.  Fuck the Internet.  Fuck anyone who doesn't know it's not really a virtual world.  It's just a data pipe, a cloud, and a bunch of remote access points.  The community aspect of it is fucking fake.  But you know what they say.  Some people dig that fake shit.

So I wrap up my 2012 Internet review by saying the following.  Fuck the Internet, people.  go out there and deal with the real world!  You don't have to interact  (much) with actual peeps if you don't want that.   I get that.  People get on my last nerve all the fucking time.  But real life, real world experiences  are more  . .  for lack of a better word, real, that all that fake fucking shit.

Why Does the Internet Suck so Much?

(Semi misanthropic post to follow. You have been warned!)

Ok. So I was looking on some website/blog. I won't say which, as that is unrelated to the real issue here, but it was a right winger's blog. But the blogger not only employed the expression,"Double Face Palm," but included a demotivational poster featuring STNG's Captain Picard and First Officer Riker both doing a face palm. And that reminded me about how much the Internet sucks. And I typed the sentence,"Why does the Internet have to suck so much," into Google. Turns out the first hit was about how Internet Explorer sucks, so that was no help. So I will have to answer the question myself.

The Internet sucks because there are so many lame, dim-witted people who are happy to follow what ever is the stupid shit that is appealing to the broadest swath of humanity, any given day. And that mean the Internet is driven by stupid people. I am not making a scientific case here. I am not even trying for mediocre Sociological analysis. I'm just going to wing it, and first I will list some stupid words, ideas that have flourished in the intellectual wasteland that is the Internet.

Facepalm = stupid.

Fail, Epic or otherwise = stupid.

Rickrolled = stupid.

Text shorthand = stupid.

Twitter = mostly stupid.

Virtual Community = stupid.

Cyber sex (or sexting) = stupid (even if it can be amusing and can turn a person on, it's still basically stupid.)

Blogs -- most are silly if not stupid. It all depends on whether or not the blogger is interesting. (Hint. If people in the real world do not find you interesting, you will be less so on the Internet. I can all but guarantee that part.)

This blog = often stupid.

Believing in Internet privacy = highly stupid.

Forums = nearly always stupid. Club houses with some Queen Bee or Bully making up insane rules and changing them when it suits them was stupid when we all were 11 years old. That idea just gets more stupid as we get older. I mean mature. Not at all people emotionally mature.

Photshopping = stupid.

Photoshipping actresses' heads on porno babes bodies = very very stupid.

(However, Internet porn is not really stupid. It's cheap, and plentiful, and often degrading if not warped, but not inherently stupid.)

The Cult of Free Speech = witlessly stupid. Even if you are getting free wifi you likely are paying money for something, or you are getting spammed, or even worse (I think) are those new pop up video commercials that I haven't figured out how to block yet. Either you pay up front or you pay in some other way. Speech is nether cost free nor unlimited free. Deal with it.)

And lastly . . . .LOL cats = the height of Internet Stupidity, perhaps.

That's all I've got off the top of my head. I could quickly find more, but I would have to google it, and as I am in a Really Hate the Internet mood, I don't wanna do that.

And I confess. I have addressed my hate-hate relationship with the Internet before, and that is my baseline. But over the past few days I read some (redundant, as I have read at least a dozen such pieces over the years) article quoting Robert Wright (of Blogging Heads) from years ago predicting the circle jerks and silly club houses/echo chambers that so pollute the Internet.

So that's been on my mind. But honestly, I am something of an early adopter. I have been on line since early 1997. I remember the tail end of the relatively uncommercialized free for all Wild West days. So I have seen it all. And redundantly. I think the last really new thing on the net was what? Napster? I don't consider Facebook new, in that it's not really innovative software as much as making good use out of the idea of a sub communication network running on the greater network that is the Internet. It's efficient functionality, but not new functionality. Again, I am an old timer. I remember bulletin boards, and fb is basically a network of interlinked bulletin boards.

Anyway, enough about that. I need to post this and decide whether or not I will stay on line, or read an actual ink and paper book, or just go back to bed. The latest Doctor Who has not been posted to iTunes yet, and that will be the highlight of my day.

Oh. That reminds me. What I say is the best function for the Internet is the delivery of entertainment product. Love watching movies off Netflix and iTunes. Sure is better that looking at LOL cats. But some people find that stuff entertaining.