Assorted bullshit about video games, language, music, and some other unabashedly personal shit. And maybe some stuff that's kind of funny? I don't know. I just don't fucking know, alright? Would you give me a fucking break? Jesus, Mom.
You can also find me:
I also write Britishisms, a blog about moving to the US, and Tuneage, a music blog I co-founded. I curate Give Me Something to Read. I started Word Journal, and I occasionally contribute to The Small Picture.
nostrich at quisby dot net
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I’ve decided that the biggest issue in all of this is the internet. It’s a monster. An invisible machine over which mankind has absolutely no control. We can’t even turn it off.
Let us start by listing the good things it has achieved. Well, er, it is now possible to find out where James Garner was born without going to the library and order your Sunday lunch without going to the shops. And there are some jolly funny things on YouTube.
But now let’s look at some of the bad things. Well, your children are being bullied mercilessly on Facebook and there is no one you can contact to have the bullying stopped, your husband is spending most of his evenings baring his private parts to some Ukrainian girl, your wife has rekindled a childhood romance, the twin towers have been knocked down, Stephen Fry has been driven to the edge of another breakdown, you have to spend half your day answering pointless emails, there is unimaginable cruelty in almost every blog, where the rules of defamation seem not to apply, and James Garner was not born, as suggested on one site, in Chicago.
Surprise! Jeremy Clarkson is clueless about the internet. The whole piece shows a remarkable lack of, well, anything redeeming, but notably: common sense, research.
Another part I liked:
I do not know how much it cost to make this year’s surprising hit comedy The Hangover, but it will have been several million dollars. None of that will have been recouped at the box office because the film stars no one you’ve ever heard of. But word of mouth means that some of the cash could be clawed back in DVD sales.
’Fraid not. Because this film is extremely popular with internet-savvy teenagers, it is being downloaded for nothing at an alarming rate. And, speaking as the host of the most illegally downloaded TV show in the world, I know how annoying this can be. It’s why I’ve explained to my kids that they can smoke, drink and push old ladies into boating lakes. But if they steal a song or a film, I will make them live in the chicken run for a year.
Let’s see. It looks like The Hangover had a budget of $35 million, and despite Clarkson’s harping, has made $277,322,503 in the US. Damn those pesky kids!
He’s right, of course: the Internet is currently spoiling everything for the entertainment industry. But that’s as much their fault as it is ours for refusing to adapt. Clarkson, of course, neglects to mention this side of the coin.
So here we have, in one of the UK’s most widely circulated newspapers, one of the country’s best known faces spouting yet more absolute bullshit about the dangers of the internet. Welcome to 2010. (Yes yes, this article is super-old, but I only just read it.)
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