My day and night thoughts
Who is guilty?
Nowadays, you kick a stone and about twenty youtubers come out from under it, the change in the forms of communication is evident from here to a few years ago. But, are we taking advantage of this form of communication in a positive way?
Well, this will depend on oneself. What are you looking for in this type of content? Maybe it's fun, disclosure, knowledge about certain subjects... The offer is really wide and we can always find something that we enjoy. So what is the problem?
The most obvious problem is imitation. We have millions of young people whose natural habitat is the Internet given their age and the world in which they live. These young people are going to want to imitate what they see and like, which is going to turn them into copies of those content creators they like to watch. Everyone wants to be Jake Paul (not me), but there is only one Jake Paul.
Go ahead, I am quite opposed to this concept of youtuber. I'd rather play than watch someone play and I also prefer a colloquium to a soliloquy. I have nothing in particular against them, but it certainly wouldn't be my plan for a Friday afternoon. However, the statistics and visualizations say otherwise. These guys generate a very high interest among young people (and not so young). I'm not going to be the one to tell you what to see and what not, at best you can find my opinion on the matter and from there, reflect on whether what you are seeing really brings you something beyond being connected to a circle. This has happened even in the world of Metal, my musical genre par excellence. People who buy an Iron Maiden t-shirt without knowing what Iron Maiden is in order to interact with other people under the guise of this musical genre. What happens to them when they realize that this music is not made for them?
Dislocation. Sooner or later these people end up facing the fact that what they like is rap, techno, or any other kind of music. What will happen to all these guys who follow youtubers like hordes, when they realize that they will not have access to their world? They will be out of place, and they will consider the type of content they consume. You will be able to observe that their objective is to become one of them, just like the one who wants to become a footballer, follows great players to unsuspected limits (they copy their hair, their way of dressing...). But that world is very small, and it seems that it is something that they don't want to see.
No, you're not going to be Jake Paul. At least not in a 99.9% chance.
And the most serious part of all this is that beyond not giving any kind of enriching content for oneself, or that serves to evolve as a person, more and more often the success profile of these characters is absolutely negative for the individual and therefore social development. It is increasingly normalized from these spheres to have no scruples, arrogance, greed and so many characteristics that will do nothing more than create a more putrid, individualistic and empty society in the development of people. They tend to give importance to purchasing power, success in the form of statistics; but also to give zero value to culture, history, or moderate forms of communication. Part of the involution that we could face.
If today these kids are fifteen years old and either have no direct influence on the direction our society may take, in a few years these kids will serve you in a supermarket, or even be your own bosses.
Jake Paul are not guilty. There will always be people with a sense of instruction, cultured, and who offer positive values; and there will always be idiots who denigrate anyone against his interests for their own, this is not something exclusive to social media.
The problem will come when all his followers, adopting his behaviors and ideas, become the basis of our society. Let's be careful with our young people, let's teach them to have concerns and show interest in knowledge without needing anything in return. Let's stop creating sharks without scruples or consideration for others.
¿De vuelta al pasado?
One night looking for thoughts about how the Internet takes a robotic trend, my romanticism awakens and I feel motivated to create a space like before. Do you remember Geocities?
Sites with a simple appearance, without frills, but with all the spirit of their creator. PERSONAL, nothing passed through a filter or a succession of boring rules. Phosphorous pages, eye-killer text colors that plagued the web when I was a teenager. I don't know if it's nostalgia, surely it is, but there is also a part of me that firmly believes that it was another world.
Before
A long time ago, I felt the web with fascination, despite being practically texts and some photos, I could see who was behind it. Now we are lucky if we can distinguish one website from another, despite the amount of multimedia content and capabilities it may have. It is as if there were a deity telling you what to put and where. In the forums basically people gathered who spent their free time talking with strangers, who at a given moment became your friends, whom you valued and loved. A stranger could spend an hour helping you with homework, a computer issue, and even listen to your concerns with surprising attention for someone you're not seeing. What happened to the forums?
Now
Today, I dislike the web, despite the amount of resources we have to make it wonderful on an aesthetic level, I see absolutely no one behind the web. Easy lines for people who would find four sentences in a row a challenge. Now strangers on the net don't help you; they insult you, they get the hell out of you and hopefully they ignore you. "Your privacy is important to us", one of the messages we read the most on the net despite the fact that tracking is the order of the day, even if it is to sell you kitchen tools.
There are many things that determine this change, but I am going to choose two:
- Smartphones
- Money
The big difference with the Internet before and now is that it has become something inherent. You no longer use the internet in your free or leisure time, now you use it all the time.
We'll talk about the content itself another day. Maybe.
