This is great: internetisshit.org.
Of course in lots of ways it isn’t shit, but in many ways it is. So, what do you and I do about it? We can either: a) cut back our time on/commitment to the web, or b) find ways to make it less shit; find good, important things to do on the web, and do them.
It IS great, and yet…
Before the invention of movable type, there were maybe 10 thousand books in all of Europe. Afterwards, there were maybe 10 thousand books produced a year (Stats from half remembered Cosmos episode – will check veracity later – point remains)
Probably 9.7 thousand of these new books were shit. Compared to Hollywood movies, home movies are shit. A lot of blogs are shit. Some Librivox recordings are shit.
And we have no idea what is good and important, or whether what we are doing has any value, and often no way of knowing until it is too late.
The internet is an explosion of creativity – we are all flexing our muscles. And most of what we do is shit. Perhaps is better to take encouragement from the number of people who use the internet to display their efforts to the world – and who DON’T CARE that it is shit. Because not doing something because you are scared that it will be shit, is more shit than shit. (Am I channelling the conclusion to Team America: World Police here?)
(excuse me for the english… I’m practicing, :P)
The problem with the Internet actually is that everybody wants to own it for their own business or success story. So they develop their apps or their content for them only. As we know, nothings free. If you get something, the other part gets something too. As the old business model do so…
Ex. : Do people sincerely participate to the blogs or they’re commenting them just to make a bit of publicity for their own… As I can see, the second option is more plausible then the first.
In the present time, all the useful tools are reserved for the « pros ». The people who spending big time on the net. The basic public don’t see any accomodations in those tools cause their complicated, independant and not clearly explain by anybody.
So to helping people to do good things on the web, they need to get easier tools based on their real needs. We need a ALL PEOPLE’S WEB…
Utopian isn’t it. :P
i think it’s not so much about tools and more about the things we do with them. we can’t expect *infrastructure* (which, mostly, is what the web is) to make us do good things. it’s up to us (if we care) to build things with the infrastructure that do good things.
much of what the creative energy is focused on these days is more infrastructure, more tools to do things. but we (aka I) need to think beyond mere tools, and think rather about what things are really important to us, and find ways to help humanity get closer to those things which are important.
I am getting really tired of people who make qualitative judgments in hip language.
Try phrasing everything in theinternetisshit without the tongue-in-cheek “I am so cool I actually still have a sense of wonder and you don’t you web-monkey aol using factotum”, and all you are left with is a person who *used the internet to talk about how the internet is shit* I’d suggest the guy follow Mike’s examples and if he really wants to make the point do a contemporary dance about the shittiness of the internets.
sigh, kvetching kvilling little hipsters. (oh wait isn’t that me, but at least I still like the interwebs)
@mir, if i recall correctly, you *sometimes* still like the interwebs.
The internet is shit because it makes people disregard anything that is not on the internet.
I did read a series of blog comments on a gay blog that said the interner was crucial in helping young gay people realize they were not alone, so I guess the statement should be modified to read: “The internet is shit unless you are gay.”
Heh. No, seriously, it’s good for building community between a lot of people who are isolated. The trick for the rest of us is not letting it replace the flesh and blood community.
Well if the internet is a place to flex your creative muscles then go and compete with real men and women who exercise creativity – join a painting class where you have to learn to integrate physics and light logic together with the science of viscosity of vegetable based pigments that have been refined from within the earth itself and physically manipulate these all with a semblance of hand and eye coordination in synchrony with a visual narrative, an optical experience and then positively change or add to another persons life through your final product! The intenet? Its a piece of worthless shit !!!!