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JJWeatherman

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I can feel the internet sucking the juice out of my eyeballs—suck, suck, suck, suck, suck!

By JJWeatherman 1 Comments

I feel like I've outgrown the internet. And yet I'm still hanging onto strands of it, possibly out of habit, but maybe it's more out of some hope that I'll be able to find the same level of ignorant excitement in it that I once experienced.

I've abandoned Twitter, I've cancelled my Xbox Live subscription, I never did properly use Facebook—most notably, even the Giant Bomb forums have become insufferable in many cases. It seems that every aspect of the internet is a venomous pit that provides very little in the way of bettering humanity, and just slowly sucks the soul out of everything it comes into contact with. Have you guys ever seen Joe vs. the Volcano? Do you remember the scene where Joe describes the affect of the fluorescent lights in his dull, drab, suicide-inducing office building?

This is exactly what the internet has become to me—this "situation," this "room." It's painful. It's embarrassing. People are horrible, and the internet so blatantly showcases that. When people aren't being horrible, it comes back to the aforementioned painful embarrassment. People try so hard on the internet. They want to be liked. I suppose I did some of that myself at one time or another, but I'd like to think it was never done in such an atrociously classless fashion.

I feel like people don't realize just how pointless they are on the internet in much the same way that people don't realize how pointless they are in high school—that is until they've moved on for a while. Go ahead, take a moment to recall high school. Remember the popular kids? The "important" kids? Remember the social hierarchy, and how so many kids' worlds, at the core of it, revolved around adjusting their position on that hierarchy? Now we can look back and realize that it was all bullshit. We were all high schoolers, and no one was any better than anyone else. We can also realize how sad it was that any of us ever thought otherwise.

The internet is similar in that anyone who spends a significant amount of time here would do well to take a step back and try to realize exactly how fucking stupid everything they think they care about is.

I don't expect people who are so intricately entangled in this garbage to immediately see my point of view, but maybe they'll at least think about it.

Finally, I want to be clear that the internet and its dwellers are not all bad. I don't mean to offend anyone. This is simply a feeling I've felt a need to express for much too long. Consider it expressed.

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TruthTellah

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Edited By TruthTellah

I think that's a perfectly understandable reaction to have. I've had moments of feeling like this a decent number of times over the years.

Being on the Internet is weird. Like being a human being is weird. Or being a parent. Or being on a sports team. Or being alone. At times, it's unsettling. The worst parts of it bubble up to the surface, and it can feel like you're drowning in a sea of absurdities. Our identities vary role to role and place to place, and our identity online is as real as our identity in person with a loved one or in person with a stranger. And after a while, you can come to moments where we become disillusioned with why we're engaging with that aspect of our lives at all. It's both a response to the environment and to the identity we maintain there.

Sometimes I get sick of it, too. Unlike some roles in your life, your place in an Internet forum or on Twitter are quite escape-able, and it can be enticing to leave it all behind. And frankly, you can do that if you wish. Though, we often come back. Because as much as it pains us, these seemingly insignificant parts of us are still parts of us. The words I say here don't matter too much in the long run, but they still matter to who I am right now. And as much as I wonder about moving on, I know that it's still a part of me.

If you want to leave the Internet, good luck. Though, I don't think that's necessarily the answer. No more than getting fed up with everyday life in a city means you have to run off and become a hermit in the woods. We have these moments in life, and usually, it just means we need to reorganization our priorities and fix our perspective. That's easier said than done, but it's just another part of growing older.

It isn't always about growing out of something as much as reevaluating where something fits in your life. Drawing more boundaries for yourself and maybe concerning yourself less with the cacophony around you. I, myself, have been having to reevaluate things recently, including my time on Giant Bomb and other forums. Sometimes I do wonder if Giant Bomb is the right place for me, and I wonder what, if any, standards it may have. What does Giant Bomb stand for anymore? And am I okay with standing beside that both personally and monetarily? Honestly, I'm uncertain. The passing of Ryan and recent issues with some users seemingly allowed to act with impunity have really shook me a bit. I've championed this site for years, and right now, there's just a lot of uncertainty.

Fortunately, I think it's healthy to have your doubts at times. It's good to question why you're putting the time you have into things like this, or Twitter, or Facebook, or any number of things in your life. We just have to remember to not freak out about our doubts, because they're natural. I'll have moments with the Internet that I just want to toss it out, but I come back with a slightly different approach. And it works for a decent while until things may need a bit of adjusting again. That's a good thing to do over time.

So, if you feel you're sick of it all, just take your time to reevaluate a bit. Since you're a user I think is quite nice and worth talking with, I hope you'll end up sticking around or returning, because we need more good folks around here and elsewhere, not less. We're all in this madness together, duder.