Saturday, March 29, 2008

More Internet Phenomena

The real world has ‘constants’ like gravity and friction. The internet also has constants, although they are quite different from the ones you will see in the real world.

For example, you will never find anyone admitting to know a ‘little bit’ about a subject on the internet. Mention something about martial arts and the guy who disagrees with you will claim to be a 25th dan ‘Ninja Master’ who can disembowel a bull elephant with a small piece of undercooked spaghetti. Talk about cars and the 12 year old who disagrees with you will be the President of the Ford Motor Company, drive a formula one car to work and brag about the time they took a hairpin corner at 15,000mph in a go-kart.

My least favorite of the internet constants is the phenomenon that occurs if you create anything and put it online. Someone will always feel it is necessary to call you a ‘geek’ and make fun of how you have far too much time on your hands.

The irony of this situation is simply delicious.

Doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that someone can take the time and put in the effort to create something… and then the person who spends all day surfing the web, purely to make fun of people, is the one to claim that those creative people have too much time on their hands?

This is the real world equivalent of hearing a band you don’t like, and then following them on tour, purely to stand in the front row and shout about how they’re gigantic losers. Sure, that band might not be any good, but you’re the one spending your own time and money just to tell them so.

In the end, it comes down to this:

In the grand scheme of things, what’s the bigger waste of time? Spending time creating something that turns out to have very limited success and will only be appreciated by a very small group of people…or spending the same amount of time telling random strangers that their creation’s suck?

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