Freebasser
06-17-2007, 03:00 PM
A virtual reality check, by F. Reebasser.
It seems like all I do when I turn on The Internet nowadays is check my emails, read the headlines and then log off. I’m struggling to find a reason to stick around for longer than 5 minutes at a time. The Internet used to be so much more fun than this - I know it did. It seems like it was only yesterday…
*flashback*
I grew up with computers, so it was no surprise that I was fannying around on The Internet from the tender age of 10. It was a gorgeous summer’s day, and I’d gone in with my dad to the uni he worked at. The techie guys on the floor below his office had just finished setting up this great educational tool called The Internet, and armed with The Guardian’s hot new column about the “world wide web” I set off on a magical adventure to look up websites about cave paintings in France, Dog-Fanciers and dedications to dead pet guinea pigs. I couldn’t believe that the whole world was here for the taking and that all I had to do was to type in a web address the length of Jonah Falcon’s penis (look him up, kids ;)) and I could see it all.
Of course, the internet moved on from its educational background quickly as people started coming out with wacky, low-content, cheap-humour websites (Hamsterdance, anyone?) and soon, before I knew it, The Internet was full of cat-porn and celebrity mugshots. At high school it seemed like there could never be and end to the amount of stupid crap you could occupy yourself with online during I.T. Every lesson somebody would whisper that they’d discovered the next grade-crippling online time-waster and then you’d spend a week playing Teletubbies Kill and comparing scores before even thinking about opening up your Excel project.
Even at college, when I often had 5-6 hour gaps between lectures and the only entertainment was to be found in the computer room (my college was in the middle of fucking nowhere with one bus there at 8am and one bus back at 5pm) I still found myself happily whiling away the hours reading music reviews and doing shit online quizzes.
But it seems like the older I’ve got, the less The Internet appeals.
At the dawn of the web you could find anything you needed within 10 minutes, but now it takes me half an hour to find something in google because there’s so much crap out there! I struggle to find new, fun and creative websites amongst all the deadwood floating around on The Internet’s scummy surface. It’s getting to the point where when I'm searching for something specific I’m having to type out whole phrases such as “Russian seaman, 69, swallows a boat whole” just to avoid stumbling upon page after page of gay sailor sex.
We’ve all seen the midgets kickboxing, the bloke setting fire to his own taint, and Cher being bukakked a hundred times over. We’ve all been scared shitless by the videos where something pops up and screams bloody murder. We’ve all been addicted to eBay and quickly realised that it’s full of con artists. The LOL, OMFG, BBQ shit prevalent in internet humour today is getting incredibly stale. Youtube held my attention for all of 5 minutes. Even this place has become duller than David Beckham’s autobiography. What’s left to do?
Is the Internet boring? :/
It seems like all I do when I turn on The Internet nowadays is check my emails, read the headlines and then log off. I’m struggling to find a reason to stick around for longer than 5 minutes at a time. The Internet used to be so much more fun than this - I know it did. It seems like it was only yesterday…
*flashback*
I grew up with computers, so it was no surprise that I was fannying around on The Internet from the tender age of 10. It was a gorgeous summer’s day, and I’d gone in with my dad to the uni he worked at. The techie guys on the floor below his office had just finished setting up this great educational tool called The Internet, and armed with The Guardian’s hot new column about the “world wide web” I set off on a magical adventure to look up websites about cave paintings in France, Dog-Fanciers and dedications to dead pet guinea pigs. I couldn’t believe that the whole world was here for the taking and that all I had to do was to type in a web address the length of Jonah Falcon’s penis (look him up, kids ;)) and I could see it all.
Of course, the internet moved on from its educational background quickly as people started coming out with wacky, low-content, cheap-humour websites (Hamsterdance, anyone?) and soon, before I knew it, The Internet was full of cat-porn and celebrity mugshots. At high school it seemed like there could never be and end to the amount of stupid crap you could occupy yourself with online during I.T. Every lesson somebody would whisper that they’d discovered the next grade-crippling online time-waster and then you’d spend a week playing Teletubbies Kill and comparing scores before even thinking about opening up your Excel project.
Even at college, when I often had 5-6 hour gaps between lectures and the only entertainment was to be found in the computer room (my college was in the middle of fucking nowhere with one bus there at 8am and one bus back at 5pm) I still found myself happily whiling away the hours reading music reviews and doing shit online quizzes.
But it seems like the older I’ve got, the less The Internet appeals.
At the dawn of the web you could find anything you needed within 10 minutes, but now it takes me half an hour to find something in google because there’s so much crap out there! I struggle to find new, fun and creative websites amongst all the deadwood floating around on The Internet’s scummy surface. It’s getting to the point where when I'm searching for something specific I’m having to type out whole phrases such as “Russian seaman, 69, swallows a boat whole” just to avoid stumbling upon page after page of gay sailor sex.
We’ve all seen the midgets kickboxing, the bloke setting fire to his own taint, and Cher being bukakked a hundred times over. We’ve all been scared shitless by the videos where something pops up and screams bloody murder. We’ve all been addicted to eBay and quickly realised that it’s full of con artists. The LOL, OMFG, BBQ shit prevalent in internet humour today is getting incredibly stale. Youtube held my attention for all of 5 minutes. Even this place has become duller than David Beckham’s autobiography. What’s left to do?
Is the Internet boring? :/