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Kollywabbles rant from Crypt #32 about the Contra
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| "Kolly-clipping" from Crypt #32 -- JUNE 1995 |
| A NIRVANAnet(tm) Infodose written by Kollywabbles |
| Distributed via the NIRVANAnet(tm) text file distribution network |
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In 1993, after reviewing numerous stories on computer culture dating
back to 1990, Mike Liedtke's Contra Costa Times piece on the
NIRVANAnet BBS's came off as just one more example of a stupid genre:
paint-by-numbers journalism, so predictable it's a cliche. The locales
were shifting, the names changing but the overemphasis on the menace to
society posed by superficially threatening but essentially trivial
computer file "how-to's" on bombs, drugs, hacking and non-specific
hell-raising remained the same. Unfortunately, through 1993 and
today, so has the expertise of reporters.
Locked into some kind of "ultimate computer goober" never-never
land, there has never been a lack of writers who turn in stories
which are painfully unsophisticated, plainly inadequate, sensational
or pandering for the sake of cheap, momentary outrage. It's damnable,
because the picture which emerges is one of mainstream journalists who
ought to know the lay of the land, but who either won't pick it up or are
being deliberately disingenuous in their work.
By contrast, the lack of skill didn't hinder the mainstream media,
or even slow it down, in being a conduit for countless fluffy, trend
stories on the information superhighway, all equivalent to junk mail.
The result, as it continues, is an abundance of useless information
that no one wants. And as the deluge increases it becomes harder and
harder to get anything of substance across which doesn't enrage, shock
or appeal blindly to prurient interests.
So, the users of the NIRVANAnet systems thought the news media
arrogant in 1993. And they complained about it. Loudly. The current
shaking of the cyberfists and stamping of the cyberfeet at Congress
over the Exon/Coats bill, while a pathetic spectacle on the part
of 'netizens who seemingly lack even the horse sense to realize they're
part of the problem too, was similarly not just a scream of wounded
pride or the surprised squeak of slimy characters exposed when their
rock was overturned. It was justified.
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