I'm a citizen of the Internet

[wendyzski]

On my post about the news from Mumbai, someone commented that "It's now official - nothing important can happen anywhere in the world without Wendy knowing someone involved".

I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and how I have changed as a person because of how I use the net.

I know it's possible for anyone to post anything, and there is a lot of narrow-focused hate going on in cyberspace. But because of the net and the friendships I have made there I really do make an effort to think more globally now.

The first step in any propaganda campaign is to get people to stop seeing the "other side" as people - to demonize them and create an "us vs them" mindset. But it's different when you actually KNOW someone in that targeted group - someone you've shared recipes with, seen pictures of their kittens and their gardens or listened to stories about their annoying little sisters and drunken fathers-in-law.

On election night I not only got my coverage from CNN but also checked the BBC to see what they had to say about it. I engaged people I barely know in countries all over the world in discussions about how THEY saw our political shenanigans and what they thought it might mean for them.

So now it's not some little squabble halfway around the world - it's people shooting outside Moe's office window, and the Jewish center in the next town over has friends in that center that was targeted (sadly he didn't make it). When the anti-Pakistan rhetoric starts I think of Hashim who is 13 and studying for his exams and terribly worried about what is happening to his country.

So I care. What can I say - I'm an idealist.

Comments

[jlsigman.livejournal.com]

So I care. What can I say - I'm an idealist.
Nothing wrong with that.

I've been on the internet since 1993, and have met two of my best friends that way, and learned so much more about the world and myself because of it. It really hammer's home that it's a small world, and we're all just people - maybe people with different eye color or a better tan, but still just people - who share this blue marble in space.

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

's true.

[justphoenix.livejournal.com]

The first step in any propaganda campaign is to get people to stop seeing the "other side" as people - to demonize them and create an "us vs them" mindset.

Yet in many cases the internet has reinforced "us vs them". With the internet, someone can hang out with a community of like minded people and limit their exposure to people they disagree with. Those identities get set in even more, whether it be politics, religion, activism, or fandom. It may be my perception, but it seems like in the past 5-7 years, activism has become a lot more shrill, a lot angrier, way more demonizing of the other side.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I've been on a couple of "The Internet's effect on Fandom" panels, and I always express it as "OK - you can now find the other 23 people on the planet who are as insanely into this one obscure dead writer as you are. Now, is this a good thing?" On the one hand, it's nice to find people to talk to who don't think you are from Mars. On the other, if you ONLY talk to those same 23 people? Yeah- bad.

I can also point to the big rally I went to downtown a few weeks ago. On the one hand there were a lot of "straight allies" there, mostly people who found out about it on the internet. Yet there was still a lot of "Us Vs Them" rhetoric, particularly from the "old guard" - the ones who have been protesting since the Stonewall days. I made a couple of comments to online forums where I mentioned my discomfort with the rhetoric and was universally ignored. In fact, one organization actually took my picture down when I mentioned that I happened to be straight. Umm - guys, you're not going to get very far if you insist on self-segregating.

No argument that like any tool, the 'net can be used to stab your neighbor or cut potatoes. I just noticed that I've been cutting a lot of potatoes lately.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

The "Wondermark" cartoon in last week's Onion males pretty much the same point.

[ashtalet.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that I get more of that from work than from the internet, but I'm not actually sure that's true on further thought. I'm not particularly adept at the internet community building, but I still know people from all sorts of places because of it. Whether they know me is a separate topic...