Virtual Demolition Derby

I view a lot of the internet as a type of virtual demolition derby. I rubber neck as I drive down the information super highway, staring at the wrecks happening on the side of the road, unable to turn away.

I know I shouldn’t read the comments on news articles, and 99% of the time I don’t. But sometimes I just can’t help it. I’m amazed at how passionately upset some people get by a Ziggy cartoon sometimes (read Scientific American’s “Don’t read the comments! (Why do we read the online comments when we know they’ll be bad?)” for a good analysis of this phenomenon).

I know I shouldn’t spend time on forums, but the train wrecks that are some of these peoples’ lives is so entertaining. I’ve told Brett on more than one occasion that the more time I spend on internet forums, the more grateful I am that I married him. Seems like a lot of the women on these forums married real losers.

And when reading reviews of items on Amazon I always have to rate the reviewers apparent IQ before I decide if their review is an accurate assessment of the product. The person who reviewed the DVDs of the first season of the TV show “Revolution” immediately after the first episode aired, because they had to be first or something, has a very low IQ because if he’d bothered to wait till after the whole season had aired, and watched the whole season, all the issues he brought up in his review would’ve been resolved.

I know all of this about the internet, but I just can’t turn away from the entertainment of it all. Stupidity is highly entertaining.