The specialness that is me

Don't you hate Web 2.0? Sure, we give ourselves a pat on the back, winning the Time cover for persons of the year, but really, what are WE really? We are a collective of individuals with our own interests and hobbies and thoughts and persuasions that are really only interesting in diverting, non-important manners. For instance, what's the hottest application that's the pointy end of the mighty 2.0 spear? YouTube...where you'll find incredibly stupid hot people doing webblogs, insanely idiotic people running into walls, and totally outrageous pet behavior. Sure, I enjoy perusing images of humping dog USB drives, but honestly, how is that more incredible than any other time waster that we have invented?

The main target of this rant, though, is for MySpace and all those other social networking sites. Here's a for instance: my friend sent me a link to his MySpace homespace space. I click on the link to see a picture of me buddy, mugging away. Fun. Below, we've got all these interesting factoids about my friend. Did you know that his personal quote involves some inane line from "Office Space?" Did you know that he likes every band that has released an album that got the cover of College Music Journal? Did you know that he's actually read a book?

Hint: for those of you who really want to met other kindred spirits, type in favorites that are on the tail end of the long tail. There's really nothing special about liking Coldplay and Radiohead. Now, if you were to say that you like Ambergris, someone might come along and find another Ambergris fan out in the ether and try to hump you.

Now, on top of finding out interesting facts about my friend (wow, he really liked Pirates of the Carribean, that explains why he named his dog Sparrow), I can read his blog postings (ex. mood=happy! I can't believe she drank the whole thing!!! ROFL! smiley emoticon) and see who he's friends with (wow, 300+ friends, including Nabokov, Colonel Sanders, and the great state of Pennsylvania!). Not really all that much to bitch about...

Holy crap. Below the listing of friends like notches upon the belt is a message board system filled with the most inane ridiculousness this side of not knowing the context. Really, I was dumbfounded by the possible meanings of some posts such as "Dude, where's the bacon," and "Give a cripple crab a crutch." Honestly, this is the cyber variation of writing notes in homeroom. The entire hoopla of the importance of Web 2.0 and the genius of us lies in simply translating the banal conventions of society into handle user interfaces on the computer. "You mean I get to write about all that's important to me, and I get to chat with my buddies...all from one page?!! Then I can link it up to that video I shot with my cell phone camera of that hottie vomiting outside Power Plant Live." Yes, we've basically taken every stupid conversation that can be overheard at a party and displayed it for all the world to see.

So, as much as I enjoy all the applications of Web 2.0, it still isn't something that we should all be proud of...love, a dude writing something on a blog (hello irony).