Hey. You. Do you know what this means? ;-)

You don't? Good. Because as far as I'm concerned, the best thing about the Information Highway is that it's where I can get away from all the common people like you.

No, really. Think about it. When the papers talk about the Internet, what do they say? It's a growing community that not everyone can join. So who gets on? Poor people can't get on the Internet; they can't afford a computer. Stupid people can't get on it; they're too brain-damaged to press the keys properly. And since all communication on the Internet is done by typing, bad writers get nowhere. So what's left? Well, the papers seem to imply that the Information Highway is just a forum for well-read, erudite intellectuals to get together, maybe sip a glass of digitized Dom Perignon, and sniff their virtual noses at the mangy herds of commoners that live Offline.

Of course, if you believe everything you read, then I have a copy of the National Enquirer that you're gonna love.

Sadly, the truth is that you put a bunch of people - any people - in a new environment and they all act pretty much the same. When the pioneers go to the end of the Oregon Trail, grimy and wearied, I am sure the first things they did were a) look for some sex, b) congratulate each other on how terribly clever they were for getting out to the West Coast, and c) made fun of the new immigrants. The Internet isn't much different. Let's explode a couple of those myths, shall we?

Myth #1: The Art Of Good Conversation Is Thriving On The 'Net.
The theory here goes something like: we watch TV and listen to radio. All of our entertainment comes via outside sources, whereas in the early 1900s all people could do for fun times was talk with each other. Therefore, they had to talk better and become vivacious, chatty people who whiled away the hours yakking with each other. The 'Net - since it is nothing but one big conversation - has enabled us to regain those precious American interlocutory skills.

Well, leaving aside the fact that people in the 1900s didn't have a whole lot to talk about ("Look, Martha, the cow moved again"), there isn't a whole lot of actual interplay on the 'Net. What happens is this: some guy writes a dazzlingly clever essay on the joys of Peanut Brittle. You look to the top of the screen and see seventeen responses; oh, boy! you think. The Peanut Brittle Polemic! Eagerly, you flip to the next entry, to discover....

"This is good"

"I agree...."

"I ate Peanut Brittle once...."

"I did, too, and it got stuck in my teeth...."

"Have you tried using a toothpick? It worked when I got Peanut Brittle stuck in my teeth...."

.... and so on. You remember those deadly dull Thanksgiving dinners, when all of your family members got together and discovered none of them had anything to say to each other? And then they'd all talk about something, any topic, just to kill time.... and suddenly Aunt Millie's toenail removal became an hour-long saga?

Well, that's the 'net for you.... one big, interminal Thanksgiving conversation. And you're the turkey for listening.

Myth #2: There Is No Prejudice On The Net.
Well, in some ways this is true. You can't tell a black typist from a white typist, unless they insist on typing like Amos 'n Andy. ("By gum, I sho' do love dis Affoimative Akshun bill....") But why hate people for their sex or race when you can find other petty reasons to despise them?

To continue the "Thanksgiving Dinner" metaphor, the 'Net is one big dysfunctional family. Let me give you an example of what caused a full-out 'Net war, complete with broken hearts, torched friendships, and expletives galore.

Tab.

Not the drink; this was a debate among programmers. Some of them thought you should use a {Tab} after you entered a variable, and others thought a space was sufficient enough for your needs. Within a matter of days, a holy war erupted, with all sorts of people taking sides. The Tab made variables easier to pick out. Yes, but time is a consideration and it's too much trouble to hit Tab. Yeah? And what about the poor schmuck who has to find variables after you leave your crappy program for him to decipher? Look, you numbnuts; if you were even halfway competent programmers you wouldn't need the Tabs to find my variables....

Now really. I've had some pretty dumb arguments with my ex-girlfriend (and by the way, I still think that if you just looked before you sat down everything'd be fine), but can't we all just get along? Didn't it occur to somebody that hey, this is just an oversized space we're talking about here, calm the hell down?

Nah. Why admit it? Cyberspace is big enough that you can gangbang with the Tabbers.... at least, until you find something else to bitch about.

Myth #3: You Can Find It All On The Net.
This is kind of true - anything you want is there. If the topic that Floats Your Boat is Civil War barbed wire collections, yes, there is a discussion group out there. Hell, there's probably two discussion groups, one for Confederate Barbed Wire and the other debating what Lincoln's favorite wire brand was. It's like New York City - anything you can imagine is on the 'net.

It's there, no doubt about it. But actually finding it is a different matter.

The Internet is huge, sprawling and not run by any one person. It is like New York, but an NYC without any kind of map, Yellow Pages, or guidebook. Now what are your chances of stumbling across the location of that weekly Barbed Wire Support Group?

Nada! That's what you'd have. Zip. Zilch. Navigating the Information Highway is like getting lost in France. Everyone's snobby, nobody's helpful, and they make you feel like an idiot not being born there.

Myth #4: Smarter People Are On The Net.
Not true; it's more like a horny mining community, really. The smart people were the ones who found the place, originally, but as soon as they found it every yahoo and his mother came traipsing onto the net. And what does every newbie want to try? Cybersex.

Why? Well, sexual thrills in real life are rare to nonexistent; I hate to tell you, but the stories in "Penthouse Forum" are made up. No one in the real world goes up to a strange, beautiful woman and says, "I have a tool the size of a breadbox, baby! Let's moooooove 'em out!"

But in Cyberspace, you can say that. Nobody knows who you are, and they can't slap your face if they get offended. So you have these raging hormones with names like "Born2Serv" and "HugGRekshun" wandering about the net, propositioning anything that types. In between them and the "me too" crowd, you have the occasional smart person drowning in a sea of people with room-temperature IQs.

As for the smart guys who started the net... they left a year ago. They couldn't stand it anymore.

Myth #5: Cybersex Is Something Really Cool.
Um.... no. No matter how well you do it, it's typing. There's no physical contact, no soft body at your arm and a warm breath in your ear.... the papers make it sound really mind-blowing, but in actuality it's some schmuck in front of the keyboard, typing with one hand. (This looks as pitiful as it sounds. Trust me, I've caught friends doing it.)

And most of these cyber-exchanges are far from erotic. They're not sex stories, they're assembly instructions. Here's an actual interchange during cybersex:

"I put it in you"

"oh oh oh oh oh"

If you are turned on by this exchange, you probably should get out more. A lot more. Of course, the correlation to this myth is:

Myth #6: There Are Perverts On The Net.
Experts cite the fact that all sorts of depraved, pornographic pictures are routinely uploaded from the net and onto people's computers, presumably to be drooled over by men who look exactly like Peter Lorre in M. Make no bones about it; these are sick pictures. But it's not sick people who are looking at them.

I mean, if you're flipping through a screenful of of picture graphics and you see:

"OINKOINK.GIF: A transvestite hermaphrodite experiences sexual fulfillment with a pig"

....you've gotta download it.

There are all sorts of questions here. What sort of clothes does a transvestite hermaphrodite wear? Male? Female? What do a pig's parts look like? What is this sexual fulfillment - and what's the pig wearing?

So you download it because, heck - you've never seen a picture like this. It's good ol' healthy American Curiosity at work. You look at it for about thirty seconds, shake the nausea out of your throat - and then delete it, satisfied that You Have Seen Something Unique.

In a worst-case scenario, you might bring over a couple of friends so they can see it. ("You won't believe what I found, Charlie. And I mean that.") But it's not like you're salivating over this, downloading publicity pictures from Babe and muttering, "Boy, he is a babe." It's load and drop. That simple.

In real life, the number of pig porkers is reasonably small. It's just that access to their actions is limited. But once you've seen it, the thrill is gone.

Well, I gotta go. My computer's overheating and I have to get outside. And besides.... I'm having my friends over to watch Babe again.

Nooo problem.

This has been an article on Tirades. If you enjoy Tirades, perhaps these other articles on Tirades might be of interest?

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