London Times adds to hate for the Web (and California)
It's all California's fault.
At least that's how London Times columnist Bryan Appleyard sees it, in a heartily vicious attack on Web culture and everything it has wrought along its socially destructive way.
In his post, cheerily titled "Break Free of this world wide delusion," Appleyard excoriates the cult of the Web, which--he firmly believes--resides in the masturbatory den that is the West Coast.
And while his angle of attack differs a little from that of Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, it is just as pained.
Web 2.0, he says, can be defined in many ways. But "its principal features are, as with everything else in California, freedom, personal expression, letting it all hang out and making shedloads of wonga."
In case, you were not familiar with the term "wonga," this is an English term for "loot." Yes, wonga was, indeed, one of the prime motivators behind, say, English colonialism.
But that was then. And this is very much of the now. Appleyard, you see, believes Web lovers are "historically ignorant."
The Web, he says, is not ushering in a post-industrial world. The crises of the last few years have proved that ancient stuff like oil and coal are far more significant to our survival than is the energy-guzzling, lap-dancing entertainment that is the Web.
And yet the Web mindlessly pursues the glorification of the individual: "The key feature of web 2.0 that is currently driving change is its intense focus on the individual. Google's power springs from its ability to advertise not to populations or groups but to individuals."
A shot from inside the London branch of one of California's individualism peddlers.
(Credit: CC Jon Rawlinson/Flickr)Perhaps too much sitting in damp, inclement weather has made Appleyard envious of a life lived in shorts. But he accuses California of being a paradise in which the individual is set free.
Ready for a little twist? Well, apparently, this individualism creates conformity.
"The banking crisis may not have been caused by the internet but it was certainly fueled by the way connectivity and speed created a market in which everybody was gripped by the hysteria of the herd," he argues.
Naturally, this all ends with a high flourish and bullets over Broadway (the one in San Francisco, naturally): "It is the cultists who threaten the web. They are the ones encouraging dreams of a utopia of the self. They fail to see that the web is just one more product of the biology, culture and history that make us what we are."
You still breathing? OK, finale time: "In the real world, it is wonderful, certainly, but it is also porn, online brothels, privacy invasions, hucksterism, mindless babble and the vacant gaze that always accompanies the mindless pursuit of the new."
Now then, I know many of you will have your own feelings about this riveting perspective. Some might think it interesting that it comes from a nation that occasionally gives the impression of enjoying the mindless pursuit of the old.
Some might also wonder that it comes from an industry that failed to anticipate the Web's direction (and its culture) and lost rather a lot of, um, wonga in that failure.
Some might also consider that the Web doesn't celebrate individualism at all costs. Even the most mindless detractor might admit that it connects many people who otherwise would be permanently apart. Some might also add that the Web does give you a choice in how to use it. Which old media, traditionally, have not.
But perhaps I might offer my own highly individualistic perspective. You see, I lived in caring, sharing London for quite some time. I was, in fact, brought up in caring, sharing England. I have a lot of friends there. I love to go back. For a week or two in July.
And now I live in the self-centered purgatory that is California. I cannot help, therefore, but take this besmirching of my state with a touch of both caringsharingness and individualism.
You see, for all the self-centeredness that exists in these painfully sunny parts, it is largely an honest self-centeredness. While I am sometimes still agog at how quickly people here will divulge information about their kidneys, livers, incomes, and sexual proclivities, there is something charmingly sincere about it.
There is little more tiresome than the perspective, which, I must sorrowfully admit, I can happily associate with England, that we are one nation, the Land of Hope and Glory.
Because it simply isn't true. On a Sunday lunchtime, many folks in England find it hard to share anything more than talk of the piddling rain and the geraniums. Is that what makes a nation, a collective, so great? Is that really the ideal toward which humanity should strive?
Some Californians feel that openness is often seen by the English as dangerously disruptive to their social fabric: instead of saying what we think, we'll just be it. It is a little easier, they say, for the English to live with the truth tucked behind their forked tongues. Well, at least until the third pint of beer.
One of the greatest dangers (for some) that the Web has generated is that there are far more outlets for a slightly Californian honesty as well as for dishonesty. Both can be shared by groups just as much as they might be an expression of one individual. Both give us a larger idea of the ultimate difficulties of the human condition.
I get a little frisson of refrigeration when I look at the words Appleyard uses to describe the ills of California: "freedom," "personal expression," and "letting it all hang out."
If these are bad things, we should be supporting their opposites. Which would be "slavery," "personal silence" and "keeping it all in." How terribly odd.
I'm not thinking of yet suggesting that California should invade England (I mean, come on, man, invasion's not cool), but is this Golden State really in the grips of a cult? No more than the financial center of England is gripped by those who went to certain schools and universities. And they didn't need Web 2.0 to create that little pre-Facebook group.
I wouldn't dream, however, of arguing with Appleyard's final words: "The web is human and fallen; it is bestial as much as it is angelic. There are no new worlds. There is only this one."
But is California really wrecking the world with the cultish iniquity of the Web? Or have other places had a far more lasting deleterious effect? I won't say which places. Best to keep it left unsaid.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
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viva la internets
He who doesn't read newspapers is uninformed, and he who reads newspapers is misinformed. Thomas Jefferson.
I might add I am English and I travel to LA every few months to visit my Californian girlfriend. I am a programmer by trade and feel that the development of the web as an application (I hate the term web 2.0) has been empowering for millions and is a very good thing indeed. Cultures differ, celebrate it! the web and freedom of communication will inevitably lead to a more blended global culture but at the same time allows sub-culture to thrive like it never has before. In my opinion this is not a bad thing.
I was very careful about whose criticism of the English I was referring to. Only some are mine, but even those are said with a wry, English accent. As, well, that's how I talk. And you know that I was merely mirroring the Times' amusing view of California.
As I said, I have many friends in England. People whom I like enormously. And you're right, the point truly is about blanket characterizations.
Thank you for commenting,
Chris
He's rather proving the points made unfortunately.
A bloviator from Blighty got his knickers in a knot over their industry's unassailable position getting the hell assailed out of it, and the author tweaked his nose over this ****** little fit of pique. Get over it already.
The printing press that your papers come from were the Internet of their day.
That day is passing now.
There is a season for everything.
Move up to the next level please, or bye bye.
I love the internet more than any other invention in my life. But I can certainly admit it has glorified my individual whims as well as my bias against the institutions that controlled much of my earlier life. This writer just wants to make sure those kinds of biases haven't boiled over so that we forget what is at stake.
Please, CNET, sack this guy! The Times article was bad enough, but this guy's commentary is foolish, smug, and lacking in any kind of serious analysis.
Tongue firmly out of cheek, yes, California (and specifically, the Valley) has created some awesome technologies that are vital to what we do and how we live, and many of these technologies have nothing to do with "me-monkey" Web 2.0 stuff.
However, as an east-coast tech entrepreneur, I can say that our opinion of our free-sprited tech cousins in the west is that for every one good instance of a technology, product, or company, about 1,000 pieces of utterly self-indulgent crap are generated alongside it. Much of California tech is all talk, with precious little substance to show for it. Moreover, everyone wants to cast themselves as a "technology visionary / entrpreneur" -- the problem is, very few of them have money, corporate leadership experience, or even a decent understanding of technology. That kinda belies the goal.
I heard a good definition of Valley people once: "They all talk like hippies, and act like gangsters."
I haven't lived in the UK for nearly 20 years and I never will again. Unlike Chris, I can't stand it for a week or two, three days has become my limit before I run back to Heathrow, creaming "Sanctuary!"... Why? Well because when I moved to CA I learned that I actually am an individual. I don't have to conform to what an overly controlling government tells me I should be or listen to the patronizing drivel that now passes for the BBC and laugh at the predetermined point.
For a land full of eccentrics isn't it sweet irony that they chose to berate us for being individuals?
I am glad that you have found some peace and self in the sunshine.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. It is one I can, as we say out here, very much feel.
Chris
It's not easy to give up all your land and your alleged influence.
It can, on occasion, turn you to drink.
Thank you for commenting,
Chris
the media industry of the last 200+ years has been characterised by industrialised forms of mass communication to a largely undifferentiated, silent mass audience.
the internet comes along with it's decentralised networks and open communication platforms and suddenly everyone is a media ceo. no one owns the internet (as such), and so anyone and everyone is free to stake their claim.
just like the old gold rush days in california, everybody is out to strike it rich. opportunity abounds everywhere. fortunes are free to be made. hit the right idea and you're set for life. crash and burn... who cares, just start again tomorrow.
this is essentially the basis for western capitalist democracies. every man (or woman) has the opportunity to succeed and is free to live their life as they choose.
why should the online world be any different?
- by Dr_Zinj May 18, 2009 9:56 AM PDT
- Bryan Appleyard is an ignorant, pessimistic troll who embodies all the things we came to America to escape. Just remember that he comes from a backwards, insignificant little island off the coast of Europe. (My apologies to those Brits who have actually made a contribution to the world; you're leagues above Appleyard, foreward thinking, and merit a gold star over GB.)
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- by jturner2121 May 18, 2009 11:53 AM PDT
- how ignorant are you?
- Like this
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