2008 Woodie Awards
op-ed: I confess, Internet talk is cheap
Tristan Axelrod
Issue date: 5/8/08 Section: Opinions
I don't really mind being called a f---a--, or told that I suck b----. For s---- and giggles, I'd like to posit that I'm not, and I don't. In fact, I'll own up to the fact that I'm responsible for those comments, because I voted for myself as the best musician at Middlebury. I had no idea that was such a controversial statement - for the record it's an impossibly vague distinction that I could only argue in certain specific regards. I don't really regret posting the comment - I wanted to find out my reputation among certain people at Middlebury, and I did.
Beyond the fact of its social recalcitrance, beyond the disregard for its original purpose, lies the bare fact that MiddleburyConfessional.com furthers a social trend that continues to distance us from responsibility for social interactions and social values. Ultimately, it makes life less fun for everybody.
Middleburyc\Confessional.com is the latest in a stream of communication innovations that started arriving in the mid-90s. I think the first was instant messenger. Suddenly you could construct a public persona without the nasty business of accomplishing anything. You could chat up girls with carefully plotted and edited statements, and you could ignore the cracks in your voice, your pimples and facial tics, and the cool kids who would tear you down at your slightest assertion of sexual competence. Suddenly you could control your image and organize your own life in the fantasy worlds of LiveJournal, Xanga, MySpace and Facebook. Those sites granted security through the sense that each of us could exist in a tidy box of preferences - with carefully chosen favorite movies, Web links and prioritized friend profiles, the Internet facilitated a more stylistically comprehensive performance of identity than any other outlet.
Setting aside the artistic implications of this phenomenon, I'd like you just to imagine life before the Internet and cell phones. I can't tell you how much it frightens me that few students here can actually remember such a lifestyle. Life had a slower pace. People had no impact on you and your social system other than through talking face to face or publishing in a regulated medium.
Beyond the fact of its social recalcitrance, beyond the disregard for its original purpose, lies the bare fact that MiddleburyConfessional.com furthers a social trend that continues to distance us from responsibility for social interactions and social values. Ultimately, it makes life less fun for everybody.
Middleburyc\Confessional.com is the latest in a stream of communication innovations that started arriving in the mid-90s. I think the first was instant messenger. Suddenly you could construct a public persona without the nasty business of accomplishing anything. You could chat up girls with carefully plotted and edited statements, and you could ignore the cracks in your voice, your pimples and facial tics, and the cool kids who would tear you down at your slightest assertion of sexual competence. Suddenly you could control your image and organize your own life in the fantasy worlds of LiveJournal, Xanga, MySpace and Facebook. Those sites granted security through the sense that each of us could exist in a tidy box of preferences - with carefully chosen favorite movies, Web links and prioritized friend profiles, the Internet facilitated a more stylistically comprehensive performance of identity than any other outlet.
Setting aside the artistic implications of this phenomenon, I'd like you just to imagine life before the Internet and cell phones. I can't tell you how much it frightens me that few students here can actually remember such a lifestyle. Life had a slower pace. People had no impact on you and your social system other than through talking face to face or publishing in a regulated medium.
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