Comments on: London Times adds to hate for the Web (and California)

In a blistering article in Sunday's London Times, columnist Bryan Appleyard blames the Web and, specifically, the cult of California life, for creating a mirage of the individual set free.

[MyRightEye]

So the Internet is democratizing the press, allowing iReporters to cut through the propaganda and bring us the news, the real news, and you're upset your paper my die? Take a good look around, and notice that you're the only one sulking...

viva la internets

[mikestatic1]

If you get your news from iReporters and think it any less biased than major media, you are a fool. It is individual opinion, which can be much more narrow than left-wing or right-wing media.

[MyRightEye]

mikestatic1 - Who's your employer Mike? Independent media has ALWAYS brought us the truth. Of course there is bias, that's why you use multiple sources. If you think the main stream corporate media is less biased than an individual with a video camera shooting and showing raw footage, the only fool in the house, ain't me. Besides that, your use of such strong words like "fool" betray your own bias and render you unfit for consideration of opinion.

He who doesn't read newspapers is uninformed, and he who reads newspapers is misinformed. Thomas Jefferson.

[imm102]

You seem to be tarring all Englishmen with the same brush. I understand the need to lash out at someone who insults something you feel strongly about but insulting England and the English because of one man's comments is a little childish.

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.

[minonda]

Agree. Just because this criticism was lodged by an Englshman is no reason to respond with a blanket criticism of England and the English. I work with people from the UK on a daily basis and find them to be the most pleasant and cooperative people of any national group I have worked with.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@imm102, @minonda,

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

[bedney42]

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way..."

[Police_States_of_America]

Bryan Appleyard is a cyberbully and should be put in prison

[technocious]

This is one of the most poorly written stories I have read on cnet. Is this supposed to be real journalism on a technology review site? By the time you get to the "You see, for all the self-centeredness that exists in these painfully sunny parts..." part of the story, you realize that the author is struggling to be an intellectual about a subject he simply does not get. First of all, Appleyard was not attacking America or California. Failing to grasp this, Matyszczyk goes on what feels like an anti-England tirade explaining why England, English people, and English culture suck (going so far as to suggest his arguments that they suck are credible because he lived there). Appleyard is using "Californians" as proxy for those who are known for playing very large roles on the web (like google and apple), even though he does abusively dramatize the the Californian software startup mentality. I am an American and I am a web user. Heck, I am a even a web 2.0 user. I think the web is great. At the same time I realize it is great, I realize it is very satisfying to the addiction to "more, better, faster." It is also satisfying to an addiction to "free stuff." Appleyard's perspective has a lot of truths to it. As an example, it is possible that some of the great news organizations could falter if all news becomes free. I know that has not happened yet, but it is worth looking at the idea that it is possible. Newspapers are struggling right now (though much of that is their own fault). It is also important that there be competition for more and better news. If google becomes the sole supplier of our news, google can control our news. None of this has come to pass, but it could and just as the web can do great things for us, the web can do bad things to us. Appleyard is trying to say that the bad should be recognized, along with the good, about the web. And he is right, we are still living in the same world we lived in before web 1.0 was invented.

[jazzmandan]

I agree, I was really hoping for a thought provoking counterpoint to the Sunday Times argument . It read more like a blog written by an angry ignorant teen, mostly just rehashing the original with little useful reply.

He's rather proving the points made unfortunately.

[Markus644]

Relax, Francis - he was just taking the wind out of a windbag. Which, judging by your 365-word oeuvre, you should also be afraid of.

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.

[SlimGem]

Why stop at Web 2.0? California has been the capital of decadence for a century. They may not have invented immorality, but they sure have promoted it.

[SprSynJn]

I am originally from California, and even I know this to be true. While I do love Apple products in general, and use the web on a daily basis, I am fully aware California is the root to many of societies problems within the United States. Just walk one of the University of California's campuses and you will see how children these days are raised in that region. So much it made me want to move to Tennessee when my family up and left. And I despised the Bible Belt growing up!

[Perry_Clease]

Who accepted the promotion?

[alegr]

I just wonder why Bible Belt still have such high underage pregnancy rates, on par with California.

[t8]

Don't sulk, innovate.
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.

[4score20]

Appleyard is just expressing the fact that he is afraid of technology and people and especially technology which facilitates communication between people and he's using the web as a way to make his fear rational. Also, he's a poopyhead.

[allstar919]

I think this guy from the London Times has a point. If we glorify The Huffington Post and The Daily Show for their slant against institutions, well, plan on losing a few institutions. I'm not against a thinning of the herd among newspapers - I'm very much for it - but let's try to appreciate what good papers like the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal bring us every day. We should pay for all that wonderful information, because I don't know of any bloggers stationed over in Kabul, doing interviews and taking pictures in their flak jacket.

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.

[johnisfun]

Since when does idiotic rambling and the odd smug, derisory comment about another country count for journalism?

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.

[jazzmandan]

I agree. CNET is just becoming another angry gang of bloggers that just rehash and criticize others content. Proving the Appleyards point.

[phylum--2008]

To the man's point, have you ever looked at the nameplate inside the box on your iPod? "Designed by Apple in Calfornia"... ah, yes... the magical, wonderful land of California... where everyone lives in a utopia of technological bliss, where everyone is slightly better than everyone else, and lifestyles are attunely balanced with the earthquakes, mudslides, choking fires and race riots.

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."

[jazzmandan]

Great comment, I totally agree. We too have offices on the east and west coast. More good stuff comes out of the east coast office on a regular basis whereas the west coast had the odd flash on innovation amongst a sea of hippy junk.

Like Chris, I'm an Englishman who now lives (very happily) in California. CA isn't perfect but having lived in both the UK and the US (OK, CA) I can relate to Chris' position on this article. Maybe you have to live in the UK for a while to understand how truly judgmental the Brits can be. It's not born out of a desire to help others better themselves. It's just plain old sour grapes. The sanctimonious air is stifling!

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?

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

Nice to meet you, oh person of no name and indeterminate sex.

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

[tygerlyons]

Hear, hear...Also am a transplanted Brit and no, never again will I return other than to see my dear old mum. Also lived in SoCal for quite a number of years. 'Stifling' is the perfect choice ... sorry, gotta go listen to some Floyd!

[jaggedpath]

Ironically, Appleby has his own blog: http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/

[jaggedpath]

Oops, I mean Appleyard.

[crasch1948]

the Beatles are destroying society and rock and roll music will be the end of all morals. and the Charleston...

[daveshax]

Exactly! And did you hear Beethovan's fourth!? Disgausting. We can't let that kind of filth spread around the world.

[tygerlyons]

The post WW2 British mindset is a very strange animal. I think that we (people in general) tend to believe that we are 'normal' and everyone else needs to be more like us. The British, however, seem to be convinced of it., They need to smoke a little of the fragrant flower over there and relax a little.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@tygerlyons,

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

[ervinsonoma]

I love Brits and I thank them for California. It was, in no small part, their colonization efforts motivated by pride, greed and probably a great desire for a nicer climate that has paved the way for me to sit in the sunny hills of northern CA and watch the sun set over the beautiful Pacific... the irony in Mr. Appleyards comments cannot be missed.

[jazzmandan]

I'm an Englishman in Florida enjoying much of the same. I can understand why everyone is so happy when it's lush and green all year and the sky is very rarely grey. Being English and having endured both I can understand why the English are the way they are. I

[mikestatic1]

Well, when the big earthquake hits and California falls into the ocean, maybe the internet will go with it.

[Perry_Clease]

"You people" have it all wrong! California will NOT fall into the ocean, but the states to the east will slide into the Atlantic Ocean. The cream floats to the top and the dregs to the bottom.

[iloveads47]

Not one of your strongest entries, in my individual opinion :)

[scorpio0]

appleyard's argument is actually pretty spot on. the problem is all he's doing is complaining about it.

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?

[Dr_Zinj]

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.)

[jturner2121]

how ignorant are you?