Copyright ©2002
Stinkburger Inc.

Why Am I Here?

by J. Elvis Weinstein

Well, here we are on the World Wide Web. Now what? We're one of how many million other sites? Every company has a site now and I'm not really sure why they all do. Do the people at Tide really sell more detergent because of Tide.com? More likely, some executive came back from a weekend with his grandkids barking "Why don't we have a website!?" forcing his underlings to scramble and create an "on-line presence" post haste. Which isn't to say the site is without it's value, I found the Stain Detective (TM) feature to be quite a resource. Just enter your stain and it'll tell you the best course of action to attack it. Turns out Tide is the answer to just about any dirt dilemma, stain stumper, or crap conundrum you may face. Sorry Clorox and Cheer.

Ever since Al Gore invented it, the internet has been a puzzler. Obviously there's massive potential here, but for what, and for who? The only industry that seems to have really milked it for all it's worth is the porn business. Just do a search on any engine, along with the results you're looking for, there's always some porn site that ends up in your results. Like the other day, I typed in "nude amateur lezbos" and I had to sift through hundreds of "adult" sites to find what I was looking for - amateur golf results, it's ridiculous. Presumably it's the element of anonymity, or at least perceived anonymity that has made porn flower on the net. Without the embarrassment invovlved in walking into the old fashioned brick and mortar porn-stand and asking for a copy of "Busty Black Girls", John Q. Jackoff is free to explore his personal netherworld from the comfort and safety of his own home...and perhaps never venture outside again. His only concern, fleeting thoughts of corporate blackmail (i.e. "Sure we'll cancel your AOL account, Mr. Johnson, just as soon as we send this e-mail off to your wife about your 700 trips to hugeass.net...What?..well we're so glad you've decided to stay with us.)

What it does illustrate is the one element that the internet offers everyone, or at least everyone with access to a computer, is freedom of expression - for better or worse. For every unstiffled poet, there's an unstiffled white supremacist. For every pet tip, there's tips on how to build a bomb. For everyone who meets their soulmate in a chatroom and finds love, there's a fifty year old guy trolling the N'Sync area and hopefully a cop pretending to be a thirteen year old girl. Despite all this...I'm in.

As a television writer for the past decade or so, freedom is an alluring thing. And I'm not saying that "the Man" has been keeping me down, it's not the case. In fact, I've even been pleasantly shocked about some of the jokes I've gotten on TV I never dreamed would get through. No, the freedom is in the simplicity of it. I don't have to get notes from a network executive, I don't have to worry about trying to find a word that will satisfy both me and the censor. If "fuck" is what I mean, then I'll say fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck. See? I get to do quality stuff like that, and it isn't months in development, it's immediate. Those four fucks can be up on the web within minutes! None of this shoot a pilot, take it to focus groups (people don't seem to respond to the third "fuck") do a rewrite and end up with something compromised and pandering like "fuck, fuck, shit, fuck" Viva la web!!

So thanks for coming to Stinkburger where freedom reigns supreme! Thanks for having this little talk with me. I feel better.