Babblative

It’s a common misconception that people who use the internet are invariably stupid and doomed for failure. They’re the people who always arrive late, never clean, tailgate you and think they’re smart because they like Arrested Development and they once heard that it was a smart comedy for smart people. Well I would like to propose an alternative theory: Stupid people don’t make the internet, the internet makes stupid people.

It makes sense. Remember when you first started using the internet and vowed that you weren’t going to be one of “those people”? You were determined to never use netspeak, always use proper grammar and thumb your nose at anyone who disagreed. Your comments on Youtube were always on a level above the rest and you never used large and or animated images in your avatars or signature. In short: You were normal. You respected other people (mostly) and tried to distance yourself from those other people.

But now things have changed.

You have a dirty secret.

Sometimes you leave comments on forum threads and you don’t spell check.

Or worse, you start using Netspeak.

It happens, eventually we all succumb to the seductive lure of the siren that is the internet. We essentially become zombies helpless against our need for human flesh. Especially brains. Stupid things on the internet are to us what brains are to zombies. Or crack to a crackhead.

We become will all become the mindless drooling idiots who we used to mock unless we fight against it. And fight we shall! We take it to the streets (or Digg.com) and start spreading the word:

Pay attention to apostrophes, they’re important!

Commas are useful!

You needn’t always contract, but you can if you want to!

We step up on soap boxes and preach the good word to all that will listen. We mock and mock and mock until we can mock no more. It’s hard and thankless work policing the internet. And you know why?

Because you can’t police the internet.

No matter what you want, what you hope or what you believe, you can’t police the internet. You can no more tell me what to do or say than I can you. You can, of course, try to pass on your so-called wisdom to me, but whether or not I take it is up to me and me alone. Ditto if the situation is reversed. Complaining about my, or anyone’s, lack of conformity is bad form and not something that is going to win you any brownie points. Allow me to repeat this for you: You cannot police the internet. You will always fail. Always. Without exception.

(I know I used to run a website called The Internet Police, but the title was very tongue in cheek and we rarely ever took ourselves seriously. Bringing it up makes you look like a douche.)