Sunday, January 10, 2010
22
Vision: snark
We've always been a nation of moaners. Be it over the garden fence or gossiping over a coffee, there's nothing quite like slagging off something, or someone, that fails to meet our expectations. In the past these complaints have been aired mainly in private, out of earshot of those being complained about. But now we're increasingly able to slag off people and organisations in public, where everyone can listen, without necessarily having any visible means of response. If you're angry that your train's been cancelled, be sure to vent your bile via an instant tweet. If there's a political opinion you disagree with, why not leave a bigoted fruitloop comment on a newspaper website? And if there's some journalist or multinational or individual that you think we should all gang up against, tell us which online community to join and we'll sign up and hound them into submission. There's a fine line between indignation and persecution, and connected networks make it so much easier to tip from one to the other. Prepare for snowballing hatred, anonymous vilification and crowdsourced prejudice to become more widespread as the decade passes. And should you dare disagree, feel free to leave me one of those typically pompous irrational comments of yours, just to prove my point.
...or read more in my monthly archives
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