-By Warner Todd Huston
Well, maybe you’re not a commie per se, but definitely a socialist. Not just a social fellow, either, but an outright socialist. OK, maybe you aren’t even aware of why, maybe you haven’t translated your FaceBook and MySpace, your Twitter and your Tagged into that outright socialism yet you are headed that way nonetheless. It is pushing you down the road to socialism. It is.
No I mean it.
I was born in the last years of the Baby Boomer generation — believe me, I don’t admit that proudly. The Baby Boomers have made one of the biggest messes in American history. But they sure point fingers well:” I did not make a mess with that woman, Monica.”
Anyway, when I was a kid a computer was as big as your Father’s Buick. Well, MY Father’s Buick, in any case. An MP3 player was a guy pretending to be a military policeman for the third time. Phones were rotary (look it up) and TV was in black and white. And, no I’m not kidding with that last one. No color. None.
But, here was the central aim of every American of my generation. We wanted to be different. Special, above the rest. Unconnected. Being a hippy wasn’t cool anymore. Joining things was uncool. We wanted our own version of freedom. We didn’t trust the “man.” School was nothing but a drag, man. This freedom was admittedly hard to achieve, but it was the goal.
Then technology began to offer us that freedom. First came the car phone. Oh, it was as big as a brick, but it was portable, see. We could call someone from our car, fer cripe’s sake! Too cool. Eventually, phones got even smaller and cheaper. Speaking of cars, everyone got one. I am pretty sure that all you had to do was tell someone you were born between 1950 and 1964 and somebody just gave you one. But, however we got them we all did. Though, it was probably because we had jobs, but still we felt entitled, you see.
VCRs came out and we were suddenly freed from the TV scheduling our lives and we could watch that show we loved any time we wanted. And movies. We didn’t have to wait until they came to the theater, either. Rent them and watch them any time at all. If THAT ain’t freedom, what is? On top of that, we could do it at home. We weren’t forced to go to a theater and sit in the dark with 100 strangers.
And of course, in our late 20s, early 30s came the personal computer and the Internet. Now we didn’t even have to go to the library or the post office! The computer freed us to be ourselves, individuals, cruising the world wide web, lone rangers surfing all of man’s knowledge at once.
Then you lot came around. You with your MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter. You with your blasted “communities,” stinking “networks,” and “groups.” Worse, the cool ones seem to change every three weeks forcing everyone to go learn how to operate the next kewel social network site at the drop of a hat. See, they even have “social” in the name.
I’ll tell you right now, you can’t be a lone ranger in a “social network,” dude.
So, you’re stuck “getting to know” everyone, you have to invite “friends” to join you, or you aren’t a good Twitterer or FaceBookist. And that’s another thing. What’s with this silly “friends” stuff, huh? They ain’t “friends” if you’ve never seen them and don’t know where they live. They aren’t friends if they haven’t seen you drunk at least once. I’m telling you, these fake names you see on the computer screen aren’t “friends.” They are electronic pulses of meaninglessness.
OK, OK, I’m getting to the socialism angle. Hold on.
And there you are emailing your “friends” and thinking you are now in a “community.” These “friends” tell you to move to the next kewel network. And you do. They send you a birthday message and you learn the day they claim to be their birthday and you send one back at the appropriate time. They send you a neato YouTube video. You pass it to your other “friends.” They command you to buy this kewel game or go see that supernifty movie or TV show. They indoctrinate you into loving the latest fey boy band, or make you start wearing eyeliner and black gloves.
Anyway, what ever your “friends” tell you to do, you do it.
That ain’t freedom, that’s conformity. On top of that, it is collectivist. And collectivism is socialism. They will begin telling you for whom to vote. Naturally, you begin to see that group programs and plans are da bomb.
The next thing you know, you’ll be wearing a naru jacket, a mau cap with the Google logo on it, spouting slogans like “put me in your five,” “hey Twitter me,” or “let’s FaceBook” or what ever vapid stuff you people are saying this week. Then, when the government tells you where to shop, to what school you are “suited” to go to, or how much of your income they will allow you to keep, you’ll not mind a bit as long as they sent you a nice email all about it and your “friends” send you a YouTube video to say how kewel it is.
I am saying right now. Strike a blow for freedom and liberty, support individualism and non-conformity. Delete your MySpace accounts, tell people you don’t “Twitter.” Turn off the computer and go buy a book if you really want to be a rebel.
OK? Are we square now?
Good. By the way, you can see this commentary on my MySpace page if you missed it.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston