How The Internet Works...

Like most people, I no longer wait until the nightly news to see what has happened in the world today. Instead, I check the Internet throughout the day and see what stories pop up. It's nice to learn about the news as it happens. However, when I click on a news link, I have to try and be extra careful about not scrolling down too far. You see, if you go too low on these pages, then the space where everyone with an Internet connect is allowed to comment on the story comes into view and that's never a good thing.

The comment sections of the Internet makes me sad. It is nothing but awful things said by uneducated people (all of which is usually misspelled and poorly-worded), who hide behind clever screen names because these people would never want their friends and neighbors to know just how racist and bigoted they really are. When people talk about the downside of the Internet, this is the part they are referring to. People let their deepest and darkest thoughts flow in this part, because they are allowed to hide behind a screen name. It's almost like they believe that if "CaptainAmerica121" said it, it's not really how they feel.

[Sidebar: One of my favorite moments in Internet history came when a Dallas Mavericks player was caught joking around during a celebrity softball game. He made some comments about how he didn't stand quietly during the National Anthem because it wasn't 'his' anthem and basically made an ass out of himself. Now, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is probably the most Internet-savvy owner in sports and has always made himself available through the Internet so, as you can imagine, lots of people sounded off to Cuban about what he needed to do with this player. And, because it's the Internet, they then used him to make larger generalizations about the African-American Community (you can imagine how politically correct those were). But, here's where the story gets awesome: Cuban decided to publish these emails on his website, complete with every writer's email address. I was personally shocked to see how many .gov and .edu's were attached to these racist rants. Finally, someone made people stand behind something they wrote on the Internet. Let's see how they like it when people can fire back at them.]

But, back to my point: as sad as the racist and homophobic comments make me, at the end of the day I remain confident that these are the same people who make the showy political gestures that no one likes and they have to do this kind of stuff to get attention because they have no real friends. Instead, the commenters who now drive me the craziest are the people who click on a story (usually a pop culture story) and then leave some version of the following comment: "Um, why is this news? Who even cares about this stuff? There are real problems in the world, you know."

Ok, two things:
1. Clearly you care, otherwise you wouldn't have clicked on the link to begin with.
2. If you're in the 'Entertainment' section of Google News or on some pop culture site and you're expecting it to have stories about the wars or the debt ceiling then you're the one in the wrong place. You don't go to gossip sites for their hard-hitting news.

Additionally, this bugs me because I want to track these people down and ask them if they even know how the Internet works. It's all about getting page views, which drive up revenues. You do this by figuring out what people are interested in reading about and write about it more. And most sites determine what people are interested in by what topics get the most page views. By clicking on the story, even if it is just to leave their snarky, holier-than-thou comment, they are adding to the page view total and making the people in charge assume the topic which annoys them so much must be popular. They would be better off ignoring the link.

The same thing goes for Twitter. Every now and again, something stupid will be a trending topic. But most of the time, when you click on that link out of curiosity to see why "Dear Santa" is trending in August, it turns out to be so popular because people are sending out Tweets asking why "Dear Santa" is trending and complaining about how stupid they think it is. Well, if you stop Tweeting about how moronic you think it is, and especially if you stop using the very phrase you find so annoying, it will stop trending. Otherwise, you're just adding to the problem and, like a hamster on a wheel, you're not going to make any progress. But if you shut up, problem solved.

So, here's my advice for all those people who are unhappy that something they don't like is popular: ignore it. By giving it attention, even negative attention, you are only making it worse. If you see a headline that you know is going to be about a person or event that annoys you, don't click on it. The Internet is a business. Just like in any business, once something stops making money for the people in charge it goes away. But, if you do still feel the need to send in emails about how much something bothers you, at least be smart enough not to email Mark Cuban about it, because at the very least he's just going to show the world how bad a speller you really are.