I take surveys for a lot of online firms for fun. I usually get some points for doing it that can get redeemed for stupid crap, but really I do it because I am opinionated and enjoy offering my opinion (although it is solicited, which is unusual). Anyway, one of the companies asks similar sets of questions in nearly every survey. One of them is with regard to the Internet, and asks simply if you feel overloaded with the amount of information available, or if you feel like it that way. I love having it available (except of course when I am going to watch something on tape delay and then accidentally come across the results in the meantime. That leads to swearing). But, there are certainly an increasing number of people who feel the Internet is getting bogged down with hogwash. I can understand why they feel that way.
There was a local radio station yesterday afternoon that debated this very topic, specifically as related to YouTube. One guy argued that it was assuredly the end of civilisation as we know it, typing in search strings such as “nose picking,” “farting,” and “toenail clipping” to illustrate his point with the number of videos/views. The other (and most of the listeners) argued for it, saying where else can you find vintage basketball highlights, episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man, etc. Two listeners summed it up best. One said that all YouTube does is “cater to our own geekdom. We each have something different that we are interested in and YouTube allows us to revel in it.” Another said that “our brain retains useless information. YouTube is just the visual manifestation of it.” Interestingly stated. Equally so is a quote that I believe belongs to Bill Simmons, that ‘YouTube is like searching for gold in a river of crap.”
Anyway, I bring this up because of something else I saw on the internet this week. I have to preface this paragraph by saying that I have exploited the Internet for all its
I would not have had a problem with this if it had not been right from the news’ website. I would not have cared if I had to search for it and go to a non-mainstream site, like I did to see that girl whose parents sued the police department when accident photos of her half decapitated but still strapped in to the car were leaked out to the Internet. I do have a problem when a conscious effort does not have to be made to seek out the macabre. It means that society will become further and further desensitised. The Internet Age has already done that to me; I do not trust my brethren if it happens to them.
Still disgustedly yours,
-Michael
Desensitization has already happened. I wonder if I am more accutely aware now that I’ve procreated? J and I were never really ones that thought about restricting television with our child(ren). We felt it was more important to watch it with them, discuss what they see, and teach them to be consumerism-savvy.
Until lately. When CNN in the middle of the morning shows (without warning) a photo of the badly burned body of an infant (in a segment about oven recalls). Later in the week, they show a blood spattered road when the motorcycle-riding rent-a-cop in Hillary’s entourage bites the dust.
Censorship is not the answer, but over-excess (and unwitting access) are not the logical alternative. It has been thirteen years, but I still remember the shock of seeing my aunt’s burned and mangled car on the local evening news before our family was notified of her death. They, at least, had the decency to issue an apology, and refrain from further showing that footage.
Talk about desensitization… I am currently on the necropsy rotation in vet school. Necropsy is just a fancy word for animal autopsy. The first day I was horrified by the blood and gore, man with a chainsaw and the whole slaughter house like ordeal. Strangely enough after 3 days, I along with the other kiddies in my class giddily hack away at dead cows and such proclaiming how “cool” the lesions are. It just goes to show that if you see it every day and people around you act as if it is normal you become desensitized. The more blood and guts shown on tv, the less people get aroused by it and suddenly you have a population of people who seek out guts and gore on avenues such as Utube.
Although feeling very desensitized at the moment I agree that a knife in the eye is a bit over the top. However, America is a consumers market and what we ask for we get.
If you are into the blood and gore here is an image to feed your obsession. Today there was a particularly interesting horse case, that when finished looked like a scene straight from the God Father.