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It is a well-known but unfortunate fact that a majority of the human race, throughout every culture, society and time, has, in fact, been composed of idiots. Before the creation of the Internet, the lovely device through which you are watching me spew my vitriol right now, idiots were generally left to their own happy devices, scraping dead animals off of highways or marrying their cousins or whatever it is that they usually do to bring joy to their little lives. Now, while the Internet has provided a social haven for millions who were almost completely despairing of ever finding other individuals like themselves, it has also, on the other side of the coin, provided a voice for idiots. I speak not of such general societal outcasts as conspiracy theorists and people who set up webpages dedicated to the many sexual uses of tin foil, but people who are, in fact, incredibly, incontrovertibly stupid to the point that one marvels at the fact that they can even find their way across the room. Let me offer an example of the precise sort of stupidity I am speaking of. I have two friends, both writers and anime fans, who are collaborating on a rather large alternate-universe Fushigi Yuugi fanfic, entitled "Fushigi Yuugi: Through the Looking Glass." Now, one would think that the title alone would offer at least some hint to informed readers that the fanfic is not, in fact, taking place in the normal FY universe. This apparently not being a big enough clue for idiots, however, they helpfully specified at the very top of their fanfic page that the story was set in an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, meaning that it DOESN'T FOLLOW THE SHOW'S PLOTLINE. I've never actually watched the series, but I know the basic storyline, and the fanfic is roughly based upon the premise of "what would happen if Yui had been the Suzaku no Miko and not Miaka?" Now, I took a look in their guestbook the other day, and despite the title AND warnings, roughly half the guestbook entries ran to the effect of "u got the story wrong it was miaka not yui but u said yui were it should have said miaka". One marvels that these people were able to read well enough to understand the directions for signing a guestbook. I suspect someone, perhaps a parent or older sibling, was dictating to them. Another distinguishing characteristic of complete idiots is their apparent inability to sense sarcasm in any form. The example I'm going to cite is, by now, a rather infamous one, but it illustrates perfectly the deficiencies of logical reasoning which so vex me. A few months after Xenogears was released, a certain person released a FAQ entitled "Xenogears Tidbits and Secrets," which contained the beginnings of the infamous Orphanage Bathroom Rumor. It was quite blatantly a joke, but idiots, of course, took it literally and jumped on it, resulting in a thousand poorly-spelled, scarcely legible posts to messageboards across the Web, all running to the extent of "HOW DO U GET RAMSUS 2 JOIN UR PARTY I CANT GET IN2 THE ORFINIGE BATHROOM ON DISK 2." Those of you who have been on the Internet for more than a few years likely also remember the inbred progenitors of the Orphanage Bathroom rumor: the General Leo Rumor and the Aeris Resurrection Rumor. (I should probably also note here, in the interest of proving my point, that there currently still exist numerous websites dedicated to the idea that Aeris/th is a revivable character, despite the fact that no one has been able to do it in three years.) I could go on and on (and on and on) about the various permutations of idiocy I've seen, but in the interest of brevity, I'll leave the reader to fill in the blanks with examples from sa's own experience. The tragic part about the whole thing-- at least to me-- is that none of these people, so far as I can discern, are genuinely retarded or otherwise mentally handicapped. They're of perfectly average intelligence; they just don't use it-- they don't read and they don't think, probably because it requires more mental exertion than ogling Leonardo DiCaprio/Pamela Anderson or keeping up with the plot of "Dawson's Creek." They're perfectly capable of learning how to reason logically and type properly, but they don't. That's what makes me feel like foaming at the mouth and kicking in my computer monitor whenever I see them ranting on messageboards and websites. It just annoys me on a deep level to see a human mind so wasted, I suppose. I have visions of this country in fifty years where politicians not only need speechwriters to compose all their speeches for them, because none of them are capable of writing a coherent sentence consisting of more than five words, but speechreaders as well because they won't be able to read without sounding every word out first. (There were, in fact, people in my senior literature class who did this. Quite a few of them.) Then, when the designated speechreaders finish giving their speeches, the politicians will walk up to them and congratulate them and say, "Dude, how do you, like, read so fast?" I'll stop talking about this now because it depresses me. |