We are the disappointed ones
Sometimes I look at the Internet and it’s like my head is just filling with noise, noise, noise. Noise that doesn’t exist outside it.
Because nobody can physically hear one another, we all have to shout. We shout quickly and loudly, without thinking, to be heard.
All the doors and walls and barriers come crashing down. Your head becomes too small for the scope of the world that’s inside your computer. Suddenly you know about every problem, injustice, and tragedy in the world, yet you still don’t have any power to fix them.
Your whole self is strung across the web, stuck there for ever, like spiders suspended in silk. Every stupid thing you ever did and said, hung up for everyone to see. Things said in real life are forgiven; things said online never are, because the whole world is casting judgement; the whole world hears. In a place without law or consequence, everyone assigns themselves as judge, jury and executioner.
There is no such thing as nuance in 140 characters.
I love so much about the Internet, but I’m also not convinced the human brain is able to cope with it. I wonder if we actually know how to function online. Things like empathy, for example, can suddenly vanish, when they wouldn’t in person.
We need to learn to forgive each other. The generation before us made many mistakes, but they were forgotten. Even cameras weren’t really around. Now,
Tweeted. Snapchatted. Texted.
This was not a problem the last generation faced. They could do anything, make any mistake, and after that moment, it was gone. Erased.
Humans have always been the same. We’ve always made mistakes and said stupid things and fucked up. But now we all know about it. And strangely, instead of feeling relief that other people are as fucked-up as we are, we relish tearing them to pieces when they show it.
We, the Internet generation, need to redefine our idea of what it means to be human and exist online. We must take back nuanced debate. We must speak to each other as if we are flesh and blood. When we read letters in a tweet, we must remember how to hear the voice behind it. The Internet has opened our eyes to the sheer breadth of the world we live in. The darkness and the dirt. The fun and the light. Everything.
We have a big weight on our shoulders. We have to update our ideas about what human beings should be, what they can be, and what they are. It won’t be easy. We’ll be disappointed in the celebrities who were once just glossy pictures in our magazines. They turned out to be real. We’ll be disappointed when we see pictures of friends doing stupid things. We’ll be disappointed a lot, because our pre-Internet view was rose-tinted and clean.
We’ll be the disappointed, angry ones, we children of the Internet.
But perhaps, one day, people won’t be disappointed and angry any more. They’ll remember how to talk. Humanity will have been redefined. We’ll get over the shock of ourselves. Then, and only then, will the Internet bring out the best in us.
janainaart
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
areudirty
romaincrisis
vaporwave
