Computers are magical, the Internet is sweet and technology is just all around awesome, fantastic and every other synonym for GREAT that you can think of. I think if I were forced to go through school or do advertising work without it I would probably shoot myself in the face, long division was where I drew the line. But with the majority of the Worlds population swan diving into the technology pool in an effort to make our lives simpler, I believe we are only making things more complicated… and it’s getting better all the time.
While I physically press the gas peddle to accelerate my car, all I do is plug in an address into my nav and MY CAR tells ME where to go and my car is 7 years old. Now cars can like sense when you’re falling asleep and wake you up and fucking park themselves and shit, which just blows my goddamn mind. (so many swears!) Maybe soon we’ll all just be able to I Dream of Jeannie ourselves everywhere… I would be fine with that.
We live in the real world, but most of our lives entail existing within virtual reality. VIRTUAL= Not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so. REALITY= the World or the state of things as they actually exist, a thing that is actually experienced on seen. Virtual reality is a complete oxymoron. It’s just funny to me that most of our experiences now involve sharing relevant content from the internet with each other and staring at a computer screen for the majority of our days or yelling at people on Xbox LIVE. And then when we are actually together, face to face, we talk about that viral video or meme or what the fuck ever from the internet with each other or talk shit about each other, or complain about how much work we have to do, or a combination of all three if you go to PC.
Like even when people go on vacation, where they’re supposed to be escaping reality for however long, they still “update” everyone by posting pictures of themselves online everyday, with their ridiculously oversized rainbow colored frozen beverages and themselves jumping on the beach to let you know how EXCITING their vacation is and a picture of every single outfit they wore on every single night of their trip. There is just no hiding from it. And I still catch myself looking at these pictures even though I don’t care at all! WHY?!?! Remember when going on vacation meant disappearing off the grid for a week or so and then coming back and telling people about it or just being fucking tan in the middle of the winter?
Now people can know exactly what’s going on in my life simply because we are Facebook friends. Which just means I have excepted their invitation to equally not care about what the other is doing with their life, and now know what’s going on with them enough to never actually have a conversation with them ever again, usually. And we all want to feel validated that other people “like” or approve of the things we are doing by updating our status, location and just sharing information with each other. I wish I didn’t actually “LOL” at pictures of ugly people walking around Wal-Mart and at videos of cats doing funny things, but I do!!
I guess the point is, don’t forget to listen to a vinyl record from time to time or to read a book or to go lay out on the beach without your cellphone, it’s good for you. Sometimes I wish I could just completely unplug myself, but then I think I would fail to function as a human being and would be shunned from society like the fat kid at dodgeball… so, I gotta stay connected even if it makes me feel like my brains going to explode. Unless I decide to pull a Chris McCandless, and then maybe someone will write a book about me, but I would fail at that too because I would need to Google everything in order to survive and would die of boredom, so fast. Fuck. Who wants to play Draw Something?
Miss Lippy Time 