MY BOERING LIEF

#12. UPDATE/CRAPPY INTERWEB RANT

Today marks an important day in my life. To begin with, this is the first time I've updated UR since when-goddamned-ever (not that more than five people have noticed, mind you, I'm just saying). I feel it is time to say something that I've been going through for a few years, but have never been able to properly explain until now. It's an opinion that has been bothering me for a while, eating away at whatever soul has been left after four years of trying to get myself over in the metal scene (and on the Internet in general) has taken its toll on me. Four years after starting a comedy site that mutated into whatever this thing is right now, I find myself full circle, saying something that just can't go unsaid anymore...

I really fucking hate the Internet and the 'zine scene in general.

I'm not going to pretend to bother actually giving a shit about any sort of 'zine anymore, first of all. While I do like the metal and experimental genres and am committed to supporting the scene whatever way I can, I can't bother to even keep a façade anymore about my dislike of the 'zine scene and the whole ridiculousness and pretension found within. Everything about how 'zines are presented bothers me. If someone's doing a metal 'zine, it has to take the ridiculous reviews-interviews-news fanzine formula that everyone's been doing since before the beginning of time and - AND - it's usually written in this naïve "BUY UNDERGROUND OR DIE!!!!! INSERT CLICHÉD METAL PHRASE HERE" style that tends to alienate most people. If it's one of those newfangled "loud music" 'zines that lumps metal in with hardcore, punk and everything found on Trustkill or equivalent label, it has to take that whole distanced approach to music while slobbering over Burnt By The Sun or Dillinger Four. If it's one of those personal jobs the person writing it has to be one of those sensitive artist types who treat everything they put on Livejournal as some deep thought. Suffice it to say, after four years of it I can't even bother to try commenting on it. Nothing's going to change, ever. I'm okay with that now.

I say what I do not as a garden-variety cynic but as a writer who's spent the last four years looking for a direction. Suffice it to say: I haven't found one yet. I doubt I ever will, and I've unofficially stopped looking. I've always had a wide-ranging variety of tastes, and the site I presently do has probably reflected that more than anything else I've ever done. Sadly, the most pressing issue that people have with me is my "negativity." To my detractors, I try not to be "negative." I'm just an idealistic dipshit with a dissenting opinion. I don't try to be off-putting on purpose; it's just unfortunately one of my defining traits.

I realise I'm in the wrong scene, taking the "wrong" approach in my writing to a genre which is, admittedly, a dumb one. I knew that when I came in, fer chrissakes. I'm not usually this erratic or eager to burn bridges, but I've been taking antidepressants these days in order to combat what seems to be a major depression. Sadly, this 'zine thing I'm doing has meant nothing to me these last few months. Priorities usually change when one is face to face with major health issues. I'm not pooling for sympathy - that's not my style - but I'm just being up-front about my problem. Lately, I've been realising what a crapshoot this whole webthingy business is. The "new" medium has degenerated to the same level of idiocy as television and radio. I wish I could say otherwise.

A lot of people do a website for the same reason they write or join a club - they want to eventually be recognised. I don't care what anyone says, poll a group of a hundred people and most will eventually reveal that they're doing this for the fame. It seems that trends pop up with nauseating regularity in the 2000's, and it bothers me. Things like the Star Wars Kid, All Your Base and the "blogging" phenomenon where a bunch of people become a bunch of overly sensitive nitpickers no matter where they're stationed in life have ruined, in my opinion, something that shouldn't have been about the mainstream of consciousness in the first place. The whole stereotypical image of web nerds talking about Star Trek was long replaced in my mind by whatever dreck Underground Online carries, moronic 1980's nostalgia and a bunch of self-centred ninnies pasting every thought, burp and shit on their mind. It's nice that the chaps who do Homestar Runner can sell merchandise and become such a phenomenon that people regularly spew out catchphrases from there like others do a Monty Python sketch, but watching other people perform Strong Bad routines doesn't make Homestar Runner any funnier. In fact, it seems to turn a decent and funny site into a gibbering pile of self-referential shit.

The Internet seems to magnify what are, on the whole, small and insignificant things - really, are furries that big of a deal at all in the grand scheme of things? - and blows them up to a mania that has bothered me for a long while now. Everything that is hateful about people is seen on the Internerd for all to enjoy. Shallowness, preening, posturing, hypocrisy, and outright stupidity have really secured a foothold these past few years. Everyone's looking for the new trend, the good idea, the salable concept. For every truly creative site, there are five hundred ripoffs of same. For every creative apex, there are ten nadirs. Perhaps it's indicative of my generation - people follow trends, look for the next "big" thing, hope for a piece of the pie. Still, it just doesn't seem like people are trying anymore for the real creative angle. It's all get in, get out, sell a shirt on Cafepress and whore yourself out commercially, act like you're not following a trend when in reality you're being led by the nose. It makes me so sad I want to vomit.

Granted, not everything on the Internet is bad. It just seems that the entertainment side of it is lacking these days. For research and information the Internet is a decent resource, and not every 'Net phenomenon seems manufactured (Wrestlecrap, for instance). Still, entertainment is a big part of the Internet, and it's the whole cheapening and mainstreaming of entertainment sites in general that I have a problem with. I realise the Internet was going to get this way anyway, but it seems most people haven't found a balance between artistic intent and commercial salability. There's legitimate funding and then there's whoring for money through PayPal to keep a terrible blog or two running. I can't stand sites that become a slave to their own hucksterism and fan-base. Fans of anything who neglect to police themselves and their sense of hypocrisy over time tend to devolve into overactive babies and fanboys for their own egos. Sadly, a lot of sites I used to like have fallen into that trap. Maybe it's because there's nothing personal about the sites anymore - or maybe I've just grown cynical of the whole process of how sites get popular. Maybe (like in the case of Metal Sludge and Evolution Control Committee, as examples) the act's just tired. Maybe I'm realising how trends work and how nothing grows by word of mouth, but rather made popular by popular sites, creating a source of hierarchy. Still, it's not what the Internet is about.

What I love most about the Internet are the sites created by people about interesting topics, not done for hit-whoring and not using the word "retard" eighteen thousand times in the article (granted, this site has a past tense of "retard" in its name but I've never used that word in the articles themselves). Those people are what makes the entertainment side of online media what it is. People who come up with topics that are interesting, yet are not meant to be the next category killer. Maybe it's a crappy Tripod site, maybe it's Gone And Forgotten, but at least the creativity is there. Those people will be known long after the Something Awfuls and Listen To Mes of the world are long gone. Perhaps I'm talking out my ass - I probably am - but the art-fag in me wants to see the small and out-of-the-way sites succeed. I guess I'm a stickler for quality control. God knows I've at least tried to bring it back to my work after briefly throwing it out last year. In the end, it's not the big cities and the McSites that make me less cynical about the world. It's the small dives and the unintentionally shitty but well-meaning places, the little burgs to be exact, that give me hope for online media. It's what the Internet was designed for (aside from its military function, that's besides the point). In the end, as with towns, the best sites (to me anyway) are the ones that are out-of-the-way, the honest places, ones that don't hide from themselves. That's what seperates the Internet from other cathode-and-sound-based media. That little nugget in the world of crap - that's the sort of place I go for.

Perhaps I'm talking like some dumb hick from the rural dunderland, but that's where I grew up, the rural dunderland. Perhaps my opinion will change in ten years. I am 22, after all. My rural heritage hasn't left me, though, and I hope it never does. I'm spouting outsider opinions, but I'd rather be the underdog and be happy than join the "winning team" and be absolutely fucking miserable. In the end, it's the underground in any form that I most admire, because the underground gives the most honest opinion there is. Maybe it's not the wisest or most right opinion, but it's the opinion I love and respect the most. You should try to visit it sometime.

Sorry for being a douche, by the way. I'll try to be less of a fag next time.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Curtis Dickinson.