(This piece appears in print in the Winter 2010/2011 issue of RE:COM magazine.)
1) FACT: The rise in digital music, deep-discount online book-buying, and the Kindle has left us with only 20% of the record-store and book-store employees there were a mere decade ago. As such, each has to be five times the prick to maintain the quantity of customer-facing smugness and snobbery we've come to expect.
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2) The internet has shrunk the world. But it's also INFLATED the world. Also, the internet is turning the world into a spongier, swampier, "stickier" place. And why is there no internet in the MIDDLE of the world? What IS in the middle of the world? People? Pulp? Opposite-beings with their organs on the outside? A chipmunk city?
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3) The word "technology" has four constituent parts:
1) "Te" comes from the Greek word for chicken nugget,
2) "chno" is Slovak for a rural, thick-ankled bumpkin,
3) that GD "L" .. WTF is THAT? I haven't a clue.... and then finally ...
4) "ogy," which is of course Aramaic for squirrel fucker.
So ... what is this mysteriously "L"d, thick-ankled chicken-nugget bumpkin squirrel fucker that has o'ertaken our lives?
I for one hate it.
I for one want to go back to hunting and gathering and the more reasonable 30-year life span, with lots of lion attacks and rabid beavers infecting and culling our feebs. At least you could concentrate for five minutes.
Because the Internet is freak-ducking-diculous, right? It's ruined all personal calm and peace and focus and introspection. Reading books is now laughably impossible ("Call me Ish--" PING! OMG I HAVE TO READ THAT TEXT SOME IDIOT JUST SENT ME!).
This one guy and I have been poking each other on Facebook daily for like TWO YEARS NOW. This is a GUY, mind you. Do you know how old I am, that I'm "poking" a male friend?
And I have a freaking MASTER'S degree.
What was I saying again?
* sound of desktop computer being thrown through a closed window then crashing down a rocky bluff *
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4) Twitter should raise its character limit so I can Tweet this:
"Remember when a bird flew into Fabio's face while he was riding a roller coaster? If I recall, the bird broke the man's nose and drew blood. Wasn't it at King's Island amusement park in Ohio? How perfect was life right then? I believe the bird died. But come on -- that bird was a hero. You ate a chicken recently, and we all got far less out of YOUR bird than the one who gave his life to deflate 'Flabio.' (That's my nickname for him.)"
* bird song *
(Did you follow that the bird song right there echoes both the sound of a "Tweet" AND the bird that died in the story? You did NOT. Don't lie to me. Well guess what, it ALSO refers to a THIRD thing -- that I personally am the canary in the Internet coal mine, and that I've died spiritually. But that's WAY too advanced for you to have gotten. I'm just that far ahead of you.)
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5) "Brick-and-mortar" is a weird expression. It's both too long and too short. It's longer than necessary to convey that "brick" stores are being replaced by e-commerce. I mean come on -- we got that concept with just "brick." But "brick-and-mortar" is too SHORT if you're trying to list all the things that make up a physical store: "Brick and mortar and bolts and concrete and a foundation and doors and windows and an electrical system and a bathroom and a counter and nails and pictures and floors and clerks and ..." etc. You get the idea.
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6) Commentators (I always think "common taters") lament that "virtual" relationships are replacing "actual" ones. But they don't remember that face-to-face interactions were often excruciatingly unpleasant. You couldn't screen your calls or hit "end call" or log off or stop chatting and claim your service had gotten interrupted. You had to shout "LATE FOR A HAIRCUT APPOINTMENT!" and sprint away. And I barely have any hair anymore, so that sell would be that much less convincing now. My point: THANK YOU, Internet, for giving me more ways to end unwanted interactions abruptly.
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7) Remember that weird baby who danced to that "Oogachaka" song who was all over the internet? He caught on fire and died. I'm sorry, but he totally did.
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* camera pans back to reveal I've been saying all this while sitting in a tree, and you suddenly see a giraffe very gently biting one of my ears. *
