Fantasy island is tiny. With the advent of texting and Twitter, a wildfire can spread faster than Katie's legs at 2:30 on a Saturday morning. And it's not THAT Katie we're talking about, it's the other Katie--the one with the hair and the shoes and the earrings. You know, the one that reads all those gossip magazines.
The practice of sexting is even better. Take a picture and email to a friend who then emails to another friend, who emails to several friends, and then it ends up on the web. It's viral marketing and it is awesome. There are people that sit in the bars and do not have conversations (the original way to gossip). They simply text other friends or show each other texts and pics that have been sent to them. The phone, which should now be called a computer, is the central part of our social interactions even when there are hundreds of people around us. Where there was safety in numbers there is now the perception of safety in focusing on what is on the screen.
The noticeable turning point was about ten years ago when the phones took
the place of lighters at concerts. A tangible, dangerous heat source was replaced by a harmless iridescent piece of plastic. In with texting and out with smoking was the obvious direction of the trend.Wait! Did we say harmless. Seems that those studies that claim cell phones cause brain cancer have been conveniently swept under the rug and forgotten. Even if they were spurious, check this shit out:
http://tv.oneworld.net/2009/06/04/are-there-conflict-minerals-on-your-mobile-phone/
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,26784,00.html
Yep, like everything else else we do on this side of the world that's cool and convenient, turns out it's killing people in the wealthiest continent for natural resources on earth, which is also the poorest cash-wise. Nice. On this very screen from which this note is being typed, from this very keyboard that these words come from are the molecules of little dead mining kids.
Do
es that mean we should stop gossipping? Hell no. It's still the best way to crush our enemies and give ourselves and each other little tiny thrills of giggly contentment. Does it mean we should stop sexting? Don't ever ask that again; that is the best thing, ever! Does it mean we should be more careful about what we say (and how much) and to whom because it's the major cause of conflict here and abroad? Maybe. This constant need to speak and be heard will eventually destroy us all. Hopefully we won't be around to see it and it'll be our snotty descendent's problem. In the meantime the only thing we can control is our own sphere of gossip influence.There's no ivory tower here; this blog is as guilty as anyone else. Isn't that right, Katie? Call soon.
Next: Pirates Good. Navy Bad.
