Shane In The Membrane

The internet, I will not send you into conniptions by saying, is a curious thing. What's very interesting to me, among other things, is what happens to those who are granted prominence online by the collective attention of the internet's users. There are a lot of different things that can happen to you. Take the case of Noah, a little boy who feared ridicule for having to wear glasses. He must be living at least a few years before I was born, because glasses are now so prevalent that it's hard to imagine someone thinking that.

In any case, Noah's mother turned to the internet to console him (which is not good parenting if you ask me). She formed a group seeking to have people assure the boy that it would be all right for him to wear glasses. They evidently did so, and she needed to do no more than a little quick e-marketing. Noah was lucky. It seems to me that the internet could just as easily have cruelly cyber-bullied him into an even worse state.

Other people get positive outcomes as well, and for doing no more than what is right. The trick is to get people to notice you behaving like a decent human being, or to notice you being wronged. You might get unjustly fired by your employer and have no recourse, but if a lot of bored office drones find out, a campaign may be mounted to get you your job back. People could get the idea that the only reason to do anything is what the capricious internet might or might not do if it finds out.

I feel fortunate to have grown up before all of this developed. If I was insecure about something like my glasses or my skin or anything else, there was no one to turn to but my family and friends. If I saw someone who needed help, the only reason to give it was that they would need it. If I got wronged, I would probably have to take the initiative to get justice. There wasn't some shapeless force of good intentions that I could hope would save me like Shane.

I may be wrong in my beliefs (which even I can see come off as crabby and mean), but that's not relevant. There's nothing to be done to change things back or into something different. We'll just have to hope that whatever this is that society does now- indiscriminately swooping in to punish what we perceive to be villains, save what we perceive to be victims, and reward what we perceive to be heroes- works out.