HAVING FUN WITH WEB

Everyone is a bastard on the internet, at some point or other. If you've got involved in message boards, chat rooms, e-mailing lists or any sort of communication which involves an exchange of views for any length of time, then chances are you've been a bastard. If you haven't at some point felt the need to apologise for something you've written which you don't feel remotely sorry for, or got into an argument about something that in real life you probably wouldn't even admit to caring about... well, if you haven't done this then you're one of those people who drift through the internet in a kind a daze, like a stingless jellyfish, not really touching anything and not really existing at all. Of course anyone who's accidentally stepped in a half-buried washed up jellyfish will disagree that this analogy works very well. Jellyfish look all sinuous and airy, but really they're quite dense. Just like lots of people on the internet!

The internet is full of pricks, of course, literal and otherwise. People who use the internet as a way of releasing some of their pent up sexual frustration and loneliness but, instead of doing so in the presence of literal pricks (I mean porn here, try to keep up), instead release it through being 'offensive' or, worse 'controversial'. What do we call these people? We call them attention seekers. You know who I mean; the guy who writes reams of 'outspoken' opinion trashing music or movies, or the guy who makes a comedy website about fucking animated dead donkeys. These people thrive on hate-mail, and woe betide you who suggests that maybe they should grow up. No - it's freedom of speech, you see, and if you're 'offended' by anything they say, well, then you're not sophisticated enough to get this complex humour. You're an uptight PC-loving conservative, you see.

But why do we give these people an audience? The tiredly offensive people make remarks about how disabled people should be shot (for a joke, you see), and they get all the angry replies they want. The same goes for the culture-velociraptors; they'll delight in telling you why their opinion is more important and why such-and-such a record/film/TV show is complete crap, and then get the response they want. Which is always any response at all. By replying to these things, and by doing more than thinking "I have my opinion, you have yours. So what?", we're validating these websites.

People who make websites featuring 'offensive' humour or overuse the words 'cunt' or 'fuck' are convinced they're putting forward an exciting new form of comedy, a no-holds-barred assault on the forces of everything, which takes no prisoners, and which represents everything that people they hate hate. Mostly they're just doing Benny Hill with swearing, but don't tell them that. In fact, don't tell them anything. By being 'offended' you're just validating their view that everyone else is deeply conservative and that they're radical. The same goes for the opinion foisters and trashers-of-your-favourite-whatever. By replying at all, you're just giving credence to their belief that their opinion is somehow special, and better developed than yours. Let's not give these people special credence just because they've made a website about how much they like to say 'cunt'.

But of course the 'problem' is that on the internet we're reduced to our opinions, a lot of the time. In face-to-face communication, any sensible person takes it for granted that people who have a similar opinion to us about who the best character on 'Sex in the City' is, aren't necessarily going to be people we're going to like. We're not constructed from our opinions about films and music, we're constructed of, you know, stuff. While my 'real life' friends have similar opinions to me on some issues, I can only count one close friend who's a fan of Sonic Youth, probably my favourite band ever. And I don't know anyone who hates the film of 'A Clockwork Orange' as much as I do. Such is life, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The internet isn't quite like 'real life'. I'm sure there are people out there who only know me from my opinions about guitar playing, politics and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which would usually be a pretty scary thought, but on the internet it's normal. After all, it's the only way we can meet other people here, realistically; there are millions of people online, so we can't all just congregate at random and see if we get along by exchanging remarks about the weather. Well, we can, it's just really crap. So we meet people of similar interests, and exchange opinions about those interests, or use this as a springboard for... massive fucking arguments!

If you put two people in a room who knew nothing about each other except that they disagreed about whether the Beatles were better than the Stones, and came back in ten minutes, you wouldn't expect them to be shouting at each other. You wouldn't be at all surprised if they got along, in fact. Because when people, or at least normal people who aren't assholes, meet each other, they don't automatically start loudly discussing the merits of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' versus 'Back in the USSR'. Put these two same people on the internet in a 60s Rock 'n' Roll forum or whatever, and chances are they'll quite probably be at each other's throats sooner or later. Or, failing that, they'll probably call the other person an idiot then be forced to apologise by the moderator, which is just as bad.

As I saw in really stupid credit card advert recently, 80% of commuciation is non-verbal (maybe 90%, it was a very bad advert). On the internet, 100% of communication is non-verbal, and we don't have the body language, inflections, breast size or any of the things which, in real life, can alter the way we commuciate with each other. We just have writing, and sometimes little smiley faces which are often unrealiable. While "The Stones weren't even fit to tune the Beatles' guitars" sounds pretty bad however you say it, these things are only worsened when we don't have tone of voice or, if all else fails, the threat of physical violence. Sometimes the greatest problem with the internet is you don't have the ability to kick the shit out of people. But, of course, if you met any one of these people face to face, chances are you might well get on.

Which is the real point of the matter; never mind tone of voice and Americans not understanding irony (a myth, really it's the French). The reason why we argue on the internet is that there's nothing else to do. We can agree with each other, of course, but there's reasons why Hey-aren't-the-Stones-the-best-band-ever.org hasn't been registered by anyone, quite apart from the fact that it's a fucking stupid web address. Not that I can talk.

No, discussion, argument, I can't think of any more synomyms - this is social interaction on the internet. Of course, some people will always try to get along all of the time. There're always people who never have an opinion about anything in the world ever. But they're just jellyfish people. I'm certain they can't be fulfilled by the internet, so don't go the way of the jelly. If you don't log on feverishly, frantically trying to find out if mighty_pete027 has conceed defeat or has reacted unexpectedly badly to your calling him a fucking mindless right-wing cunt, then clearly you're not getting the full internet experience. People make the grave mistake of thinking that disagreement and argument is the bad part of the internet, and that agreement and harmony is good. No - the bad part of the internet is Christian Coalition websites, but discussion between people who really do not and probably never will agree is what it's all about. That, for the most part, is the most lively and exciting interraction. Of course, now we need to work out how it's possible to like people who we only know through disagreement. I'm still struggling with that one.

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