Pop icon’s contempt for the Internet is music to my ears

By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist | July 13, 2010

You don’t have to be a genius to hate the Internet. But it helps.

The artist occasionally known as Prince got his 36 hours of fame last week when he told London’s Daily Mirror: “The Internet is completely over. . . . All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.’’

This is not a new theme for the Elvis of Minneapolis. Three years ago Prince lashed out at YouTube, eBay, and the notorious Swedish web thieves Pirate Bay for distributing his work without permission.

Prince joins an impressive roster of Internet detractors, including Sir Elton John (“I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole Internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span’’); Oliver Stone (“It’s [fooling around] in front of the camera and I’m sick of it’’); and porn star Ron Jeremy (“I am a former school teacher, I have a masters degree and two BAs, and I think the Internet is making people stupid’’), to name just a few.

Another member of the don’t-need-no-stinkin’-Internet club is science fiction legend Ray Bradbury, author of “The Martian Chronicles’’ and “Fahrenheit 451.’’ “We are multitudinous lemmings driven by wireless voices to hurl ourselves into the Internet seas where tides of mediocrity surge, pretending at wit and will but signifying nothing,’’ he wrote in 2006.

Last year Bradbury, who — God bless him — has been thumping the tub for public libraries, described an attempt to digitize one of his books: “Yahoo! called me eight weeks ago,’’ he told The New York Times. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’ ’’

Come on. Admit it. You hate the Internet a little, too.

Ten years ago, you could get away with saying that the Himalayan peak K-2 was “about 29,000 feet high.’’ Now, that obnoxious guy — you know who I mean — whips out his iPhone and cheerfully corrects you: “Actually it’s 28,251 feet tall.’’ Then he turns the screen toward you, as proof, and says: “Look! It’s on Wikipedia.’’ Oh, yes, the same people who say I was born in Oakland. It must be true.

There is that minor problem of Internet falsehoods. Last summer an Alaskan blogger reported that Sarah Palin was going to be indicted, and my loony left in-laws heard the “fact’’ repeated on NPR. They still insist that Palin has been indicted. After all, they heard it on NPR.

Good luck having a conversation about the Internet, unless you know what G4 means. I thought it was a bingo call out. It turns out to be just another expensive upgrade you don’t need. Can we skip to G8? Would that be OK? The Internet has its own, constantly evolving lexicon: Linux, tweets, Ku band, Chrome, Android. What the heck. It’s like bothering to remember band names, like Jane’s Addiction. Where are they now? Who cares?

Then there is the spectacle of undeserving young people (there’s a tautology) getting rich, writing useless “apps’’ for Apple and Facebook. Is FarmVille like FishVille? Do I really need to know? Why can’t we go back to delightful 2001, when the dot-commers were huddled outside Mollie Stone’s in Palo Alto, begging for food?

Before the Internet, I had maybe 20 friends. Now I have 576 “friends.’’ Like the lady whose uncle was the Nigerian minister for petroleum exploration. Or my second cousin who needed me to wire money to Europe, urgently. That was really my second cousin, but he didn’t need any money. Somebody hacked his Internet account.

Larry Lessig, who is a recognized Internet genius, sends me an automatic message via Foursquare every time he shows up at an airport or checks in at a hotel. Larry, I just took a bike ride and had to adjust the seat a couple of times. I thought you would want to know.

And who doesn’t love those anonymous Internet commenters? Thank you, DumpstrDivr 401 — you’ve really raised my game.

They are anonymous, but you’re not. Between Google Analytics and the National Security Agency, you haven’t made an unnoted keystroke in about four years. Privacy? Thy name is Zuckerberg.

You still think PrinceEltonJohnRayBradbury are idiots? I don’t.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.

http://www.boston.com/lif...heart_you/

[Edited 7/13/10 14:27pm]

Thanks for posting ... Interesting ...

no wonder they all hate the net. they dont look beyond apps and social media.

amazing, i spent 10 years using the net for eveything BUT that crap.

if folks cant see past the commercial net and find the good stuff

then more fool them. see ya. net dont want you anyway.

robinhood said:

no wonder they all hate the net. they dont look beyond apps and social media.

amazing, i spent 10 years using the net for eveything BUT that crap.

if folks cant see past the commercial net and find the good stuff

then more fool them. see ya. net dont want you anyway.

Everything is becoming commercial on the net though no? I'm nut ludditic about the internet or anything. 80% of my work is done through cloud-computing, so I can't be.... but I'm sympathetic to those who see how we're changing as a species (for good and for worse) due to relying on the net for everything we do... I miss buying records and collecting them and listening to the hiss of the record player when i played something old... Little simple things we lose and it changes us... Like our lust for instant gratification... An artist cant even take his/her time and have a multi-tiered release strategy for album distribution anymore... it has to be everywhere at one or the masses on the internet have a hissy-fit.

porn star Ron Jeremy (“I am a former school teacher, I have a masters degree and two BAs, and I think the Internet is making people stupid’’)

This from a man with all that going for himself...whose claim to fame is starring in fuck movies. Oh yeah and the ability to suck his own dick! He thinks it's the internet that's making people stupid? No, Ron...it's the porn!

Anyone else noticing a common factor in all this internet bashing? Most of the outspoken bashers are over 50. Are they bashing the internet because they just can't understand it, nor what to do with it?

Can you post a source link?

Found it.

[Edited 7/13/10 8:41am]

lezama said:

robinhood said:

no wonder they all hate the net. they dont look beyond apps and social media.

amazing, i spent 10 years using the net for eveything BUT that crap.

if folks cant see past the commercial net and find the good stuff

then more fool them. see ya. net dont want you anyway.

Everything is becoming commercial on the net though no? I'm nut ludditic about the internet or anything. 80% of my work is done through cloud-computing, so I can't be.... but I'm sympathetic to those who see how we're changing as a species (for good and for worse) due to relying on the net for everything we do... I miss buying records and collecting them and listening to the hiss of the record player when i played something old... Little simple things we lose and it changes us... Like our lust for instant gratification... An artist cant even take his/her time and have a multi-tiered release strategy for album distribution anymore... it has to be everywhere at one or the masses on the internet have a hissy-fit.

the net is not the problem. its the people who are infecting it with crap that are the problem. money is the problem. commercialism is the problem.

you got how many generations brainwashed by hellavision, tabloids, b-grade hollywood movies, reality TV, the keeping up with the joneses folks,

vulturisitic record companies and tek geeks with no souls jumpin on the net and infecting it

with all their false values

people are always so quick to blame the medium, but the medium has never been the problem.

it's PEOPLE and how they use that medium, what they fill it up with,

and how they arrogantly and ignorantly presume that every new piece of modern technology is invented purely to serve their own one-sided interests.

selfishness is the problem, greed is the problem,

and these things have swept onto the net and sucked a lot of folks, including Prince, into the black hole created by a simple lack of ethics, soul, courtesy and common sense.

whats wrong with a free net. we share. we learn. we grow. we give. we dont take. we dont fake. we're real. we're genuine.

a net full of real people instead of the zombies created by mass media commercialism, is the answer.

a net full of people with open hearts and minds, instead of loud mouths and passive-aggressive mommy issues, money-grabbers and youtube freakshows desperate for the last and biggest laugh.

human race has a chance to evolve and use its technology for everyone's betterment.

not a matter of taking what you can get and screw everyone else.

a chance to evolve and grasp what it really means to consider yourself part of the whole, and how whatever you say and do affects EVERYONE, not just yourself.

if people arent willing to look inside themselves for the answer and want to blame 'the internet' then so be it

but next year they'll blame something else, and the year after something else

to evolve or perish is a universal law.

robinhood said:

whats wrong with a free net. we share. we learn. we grow. we give. we dont take. we dont fake. we're real. we're genuine.

I guess the problem, in a nut shell, is that no, "we", the many and the vast sea of user online, don't "give". It's the types like Prince and all the other artists, authors and film makers, that "give" a product to be consumed be "we".

All of this, this site, all of us, are just words. Worthles words that no one wants besides us. This is just recorded conversations and relations in the club house.

I can understand why the providers of content to the net get fed up with it, especially when everybody else seems to demand that they should conform to their own lethargic point of view, where "exchange" means something like: "You give me actual, valuable work, and I'll pay you view my opinion of it. No, not money. Information should be free".

*Awaits unnuanced attack*

Cravens said:

robinhood said:

whats wrong with a free net. we share. we learn. we grow. we give. we dont take. we dont fake. we're real. we're genuine.

I guess the problem, in a nut shell, is that no, "we", the many and the vast sea of user online, don't "give". It's the types like Prince and all the other artists, authors and film makers, that "give" a product to be consumed be "we".

let them bargain (bar.gain) for our attention as much as they like.

they're caught in in the loop of expecting something in return.

others, (and yes we do exist) - "we" give plenty, expecting nothing in return.

we are the new generation of evolved human

we understand what 'unconditional' really means.