I don’t want to get off on a rant here but…
Are you really considering the internet as the root of youthful societal disconnect amongst a generation?
The main drivers of this “mob”, as mods’ve termed it, are primarily “Gen-Y”, true. However, if you’ve to make an exucse for the statements, I’d have to place alot more blame on the parent, rather then the internet evolution.
I (1981) got on the net in the Prodigy era, ~1993. AOL chat rooms by ~1997. Onto vbb foums in ~2000 (some of which I still visit sparsely). All this mainly because my father had been a computer tech & geek since the 70s.
To get back on track: IMHO, this general attitude of anti-establishment didn’t become universal until fairly recently… say circa 2000 - 2002. By this time I didn’t spend nearly as much time online as when I was a young teen because I’d found girls & intoxicants.
My take on it would be the advent of the “tech bubble age”, every company tried to go tech, get online, and be the early adopter / cool face of an age. This brought the internet mainstream, which brought people online in higer numbers. By this time, most “Gen-Y” (75 - 85(?)) kids were grown enough to have some actual (in person) social sense… particularly given the age of Political Correctness that had come about.
Sadly, as the “Web 2.0” :roll2: effect took hold in ~2004, whereas kids felt the right & the need to distinguish themselves on this new place of identity & means of outreach.
Now you have 15 yr olds googling goatse, somethingrotten, and the most graphic human fatalities… on a regular basis. Trying to outdo one another.
These are the same kids that have been given ridelin from the age of 5; watched Sesame street charactors get HIV; had their own personal cell phones since the age of 8 because mommy said they were “safer” for having it, etc… I don’t consider these kids “Gen-Y”, and I have no idea what their current “label” is.
I’ll say this much, the older (age & join date) members here that have posted the most sincere complaints & suggestions about the State of the Forum have led these threads with criticism. Rather then those newer/younger members posting simply “this sucks” or ;word;.
FWIW, at least some members here can be intelligent or secure enough to make a statement of value - wether it is well recieved by the targeted person is a question of the social skills of said target.
If you draw criticism, and you cannot handle said criticism, is that really the fault of your “attacker”?
I was brought up by my Souther & European families to respect every one until given a reason to consider otehrwise. That does not mean, to me, that you have to handle everyone with kid gloves. If this were the case there would be no social or cultural growth within a community.
It is human nature to weed out the weak & meek. Its the reason our species is still around.
If you willfully cater to someones weakness / shortcoming, then you are empowering that fault, and validating it as an excusatory manner. That is not respect, that is pity. You cannot respect & pity something concurrently.
There should be no “veil of protection” needed, there should be no rebuttal. If you’re an idiot, irresponsible, ignorant by apathy, or unwilling to be wrong - then you need to be corrected. Wether the correction is too harsh is not a real concern. It is not the job of someones peers to RAISE them, simply to councel them - either passively or actively.
Bah. Antidisestablishmentarianism is sum power of people of strong faith. To come to this website everyday and interact here, you have to enact faith in the mods to allow the community to act as such. When actions start dictating the community action, you will see an uprising.
And, I need to fill my coffee mug & get to work, so take it with a grain of salt - or skim on over this dribble.
Allthatshitbyyou.jpg.
/soapbox.
Glad someone’s on the same level as I am. 