If you live in a world that runs on memes that spread across the globe in a matter of hours and sub cultures that spring up around the latest social network, or MMORPG, sometimes the slang can get a little confusing – even for the most hardened of Internet users. For this reason I like Urban Dictionary. I find it enlightening and often amusing to skim through the user submitted definitions for the latest buzzword, or catch phrase.
Here’s a user submission that caught my eye the other night as particularly surreal. Apparently doganuses is not at all taken with the spirit of blogging and has strong feelings about the use of some of the jargon attached to the scene. More after the jump.
It did get me to thinking – this rather strange and random outpouring of disgust and anger in the middle of cyber nowhere – about the similarities between cyber rage and road rage and the Internet as an outlet for the copious amounts of suppressed anger most people are carting around these days in our increasingly neutered society. Not guilty? how many times have you yelled curses at someone from behind your steering wheel in the last week…?
This in turn got my thoughts running towards the uglier side of such matters and the Internet as a vehicle for people to find outlets for their darker tendencies, such as was recently highlighted with the arrest of Phillip Markoff, aka the The Craiglist killer earlier this month.
Markoff is not even the first Craiglist killer by the way. Nineteen year old Michael John Anderson, claimed this dubious honour back in 2007 when he lured a young lady to his apartment with a babysitting advertisement so that he could shoot her and shove her in the trunk of her car.
Coincidentally I just finished watching the first season of Dexter and the loveable serial killer himself pays homage to Craiglist by using it to send a furtive message to the Ice Truck killer. We are getting increasingly good at humanizing our demons and letting them out to play aren’t we? A charming serial killer, who lives by a code and only feeds his urges on truly deserving victims – its an intriguing concept – no let’s not soft soap it – it’s an exciting concept! It’s justice in rubber gloves, with a scalpel, a bonesaw and an industrial-sized roll of shrinkwrap.
Dexter sums this up beautifully in his chilling narration of the final scene of the season finale where he imagines the crowd cheering for him.
“My Darkness revealed my shadow self embraced, yeah they see me I’m one of them – I’m their darkest dreams.”
Its brilliant TV, punchy story line, socially relevant and unafraid of itself and as long as we’re parading demons down main street I’m not about to miss the show, or the ride in the hand basket.
I do have this nagging question that won’t go away though… has anyone checked the brakes on this thing recently?
