What the Internet has done. Bellybutton lint and lemurs.

[ellenmillion]

This started out as a reply to Ursula's post, but got too deep and sloggish and off-topic to be a reply. No, sloggish is not a word, and yes, M$word keeps wanting to change it to sluggish, but I'm American, so I can make up words just like my president. Deal.

I ought to link to Ursula's post as background, but I'm too lazy. *points to friendslist* Go find it yourselves. You'll appreciate the sense of accomplishment. And Ursula has lots of great rants, so you'll be doing yourselves a favor, too.



Do you ever marvel at the sheer power of the Internet? I can find a paper on lemurs, everything Bart ever wrote in the opening credits of the Simpsons, conspiracy theories about the president of Doyon, scripts from TV shows that haven't aired yet, and recipes for haggis, all without doing much more than a few keystrokes in a tiny window in my computer screen while I'm drafting.

What's more, if *I* had a paper on lemurs, I could put it up. And it might get mentioned on a lemur chatboard. And seven hundred lemur fans could find it and study it, and build little lemur altars to me, and write me emails asking if I'll bear their children.

The point (I did have one) is that the Internet is an instant, *unbiased* connection between anyone of us and the rest of the world that has computers. Which is a rather stunning number of people. It is a capitalists dream. There is no media giant that regulates what goes through. There is no need to focus. If there are only five people in the known world who really, really love to collect bellybutton lint, I doubt that Time Warner/Marlboro/General Mills is going to start a line of it. But some intrepid soul could start up a bellybutton lint business, and reach all five of those people. They can start up a message board, and recruit more bellybutton lint collectors. There isn't a central dictator saying, 'bellybutton lint doesn't sell ad space, it isn't profitable for our giant, impersonal corporation, therefore it shall not be.' I hope to everything precious that there never is.

Myself, I wallow in fantasy art. I love worlds that have never existed. I love heroic stories and yellow skies. I can look at hundreds and hundreds of pieces of art every day, if I want to. New art, by artists I've never heard of. Old art, from famous masters. Art that I don't like, and art that I spend time drooling over.

The world is huge. And it's all here, at my fingertips.

Basically, my point is that we live in exciting times. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Comments

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

I agree. The Internet is just a damn cool, wonderful, free-for-all, and I hope to god it stays that way. Although really, I can't see how it could get regulated that much anyhow--it would require degrees of international cooperation unlikely to be achieved in our lifetime. Viva la Internet!

[octoberdreaming.livejournal.com]

It's something I really can't imagine living without. Before the internet, my world, no matter how hard I tried to push the boundaries out, was small. I was 18 before I even learned how to use a computer. But once I found the internet, the world suddenly became smaller and infinitely large all at once.

Yes. As Ursula says. Long live the Internet, in all its "infinite diversity and infinite combinations"!

[mebird.livejournal.com]

Oh heck yes, so small and yet so big. Like for instance I have someone buying one of my pieces of art to put on his motorbike. I live in NZ and he is US. Now how could that possibly ever happen without the internet, it's very cool and weird all at once. :)