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Why
Am I Here?
by J. Elvis Weinstein
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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.
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