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A Jackie/Six production

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 |
1984 = S. Korea ?
 
Sometimes what's so scary about the fact that everybody is getting connected is that ... EVERYBODY is getting connected. And this is more then just the usual joke about mom discovering your blog, it's feeling its way out of the matrix and into the real world. The boingboing summary almost captures the situation, but of course edits out just enough to make it meaningless. It's not much, the linked story just containes 4 more relevent sentences, but they are very relevent. In short, girl with dog gets on subway car. Dog poops. Girl doesn't clean up. People (and by people, I mean the adults ... more on this later) object. Girl tells them to fuck themselves. Guy takes picture. Elderly man cleans up said poop after girl and dog leave. Guy blogs about it. Inevitable firestorm erupts. Only, since this is Korea, it doesn't stop at the girl. Enraged netziens are digging into the family history. Parents. Grandparents. Siblings, cousins, uncles, etc. And then sticking THEM with some of the hate to boot. Because this Korea, and Koreans are nothing but OBSESSED with clan identity. I should know, I still see traces of this with my parents. Once, I was going to a job interview, and my mother told me not to worry. If I got asked what my parents did, I shouldn't be ashamed and tell the truth with honest. Okay? Huh?! WTF? I've not gone on a thousand interviews, a lot, but not a million so I guess I'm not qualified to be an expert; but I've NEVER been asked a single question about what my parents did for a living. I mean, it's so silly as bordering on total ridiculousness. Are my parents applying for this job? No, so who gives a flying cat's ass what they do for a living. Hell, nobody has ever expressed any interest in knowing if I ever even had parents, or just sprung forth from a giant pod from the planet Quepto. In my lifetime, that question has come up maybe a total of 10 times, and from then only from close friends. NOBODY cares. What kind of crazyland insani-town would even ask the question? Korea. I mean, N. Korea regularily sends entire families to work in the slave mines because somebody's great grandfather was once suspected of treason. EVERYTHING is hereditary there, so it's no suprise that the 'net went all nuts on making sure dog-poop-girl's family got included in the madness. Which is just crazy. I can understand on ragging on the girl. I mean, I'm adding to the fire too, in posting about this story. But it's not like the girl's parents were standing right there telling her "Do NOT clean up after the dog, or you're grounded for LIFE." There's a line I draw that says "this has gone too far", and in Korea it appears there are no lines. Which is SCARY. Because that means everybody is part of a faceless mob. It's like dealing with a bunch of 13 year olds, only there are millions of them. Individually, they don't want to do much of anything at all, but if you offer them a wounded gazelle, they'll all pounce like a pack of rabid hyenas until there's nothing left but the bones. So you have to watch every move you make, because everybody's watching. And that, of course, discourages anyone from standing out, taking a chance, being different in any sort of way. It's a lot safer to conform to the group consensus, to follow the groupthink, to be in the thick of the mob. Because they'll be watching, what you say, and what you do, and what you think. CONFORM OR DIE! All of which, if you've read any of my rants this far you'll know by now, is beside the point. The point is that all of these hosers are just cowards hiding behind their keyboards. Maybe they really are 13 years old. Why? Because hardly anybody objects to the horrible crime when it's actually taking place. Or at least none of the young people do. And who's left to clean up the mess? Nobody but a rather elderly man. Anybody report this to the stationmaster, to the authorities? Anybody? I didn't think so. I can sympathize, I live in a big city, and the risks of not being apathetic are large. You never know when you look at the wrong person in the wrong way and end up with a shiv in the back. But by the same token, if you didn't have the courage to do something about it in real life, you've pretty much lost the right to get all outraged about it afterwards sitting at home feeling all superior over your hot tea. Instead of getting all outraged on the net, maybe if half these people (myself included) actually decided to do something the next time they experience one of these minor minor crimes, we might then actually live in a better world. At the very least they could tear themselves away from their Bread and Circus online gladiator feedingfrenzy character assasinations and maybe, I don't know, summon some moral outrage about the madman to their North who regularily starves/slaughters/sends to the gulog millions of their fellow countrymen. Nah, a lot easier to just rag on the dog-poop-girl. Stupid bitch.

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