Analogue in a Digital World – Jayvir Pillay

"Misterrr Anderrrson"

No doubt by the time your eyes shift the length of space preceding these words your attention will have been diverted to the erection of a pop up promising to enlarge your man parts in just 3 weeks or the red ember of a notification foretelling your demise unless a video of 3 kittens playing with a ball of wool is forwarded to 25 people in the next 3 seconds. Albeit from me to distract you from tending your farm…fish tank..or whatever it is the kids are doing these days..but its at this juncture that when faced with the question “whats on your mind?” that i dare to ask,Where did we go wrong??..because if “OMG, GG season finale” or “Moe hates Mondays” is any inclination,then not very much is on our minds.Its at this point that you should feel free to click that close button or hit back, as your initial presumption to this being a cynical bio-tribe on everything that's wrong with society would be a correct one..Go ahead..click that close button..proceed to go and pick up a bandwidth refund...accept…yes I do want to join you in the fight against vampires.

When did “inbox me” and “BB” (and I must note that its with great control that i fight the urge not to go into a rant about the BB pandemic but I'll leave that for another time and get back to the matter at hand) become terms in urban survival dictionaries. Since when did a drop-down box with a “relationship status” cause so much suspicion of infidelity. When did “poking” become fore play and why did no one forward me the app that tells everyone with an internet connection that I just drove through the KFC lot. But more importantly when did the internet become the fly on the wall in the privacy of our lives, because I hope this isn't the dawning of an age where an i-phone application tests your two-sies (salute Dr John Dorian) and prescribes a high fiber diet for you and 20 of your friends. That KFC is a colon buster ay…
Now before you sharpen your pitchfork and call me a hypocrite, for I too am on the book of face, this isn't about having a blackberry or being on facetube or twitter..(R.I.P Ringo)…but more that we ask ourselves if, as technology advances beyond the realms of imagination ,are we as a society doing the same?
Growing up and witnessing the complete lack of efficiency with anything electronic and shiny my parents had,I always told myself that I would never lose touch of trends/pop culture and such.However the mere fact that at any given time I can turn on my TV and feel geriatric leads me to believe that I have already crossed this Rubicon.
When did lyrics like “popping bottles in the ice,like a blizzard,when we drink we do it right getting slizzard” pass as music?? slizzard? Thats not even a word. Poetic license revoked…and as John Lennon begins his evolution into fossil fuels 6 feet below our feet im sure even he is cringing at every bubble gum coated album that comes off todays music conveyor belt. Kids today know more about the internal workings of the Kardashian family politics than that of their own country. Although lets be fair, there aren't many disparities between the current role players of the South African political structure and the drama of weekday soapies. Fair enough,we take this media on face value as purely entertainment but the hordes of screaming prepubescent girls who shudder at the mention of Edward “check me out I glitter in the sun” Cullen surely is some indication that entertainment has far evolved from a humble pastime. I guess its all irrelevant as long as your fly like a G6 and waking up feeling like P.Diddy..
Watching the current generation of high school musical clad youth reigning carnage in shopping malls and commercial flights is enough to make me grip a scalpel and give myself a vasectomy. Any parent will tell you that raising children in any frame of time is a feat in its own but do we really wanna bring up our children in a world of Hilton’s and Lohan’s on that black box in our living rooms which will ultimately influence them more than we ever will. Grant it I grew up on a South Park and Simpsons cocktail and I turned out reasonably……….nevermind…
When did even emailing become so archaic, and the written word blasphemous. God forbid people should actually meet in person, and as we contribute to the death of the English language one “lol” at a time what then? Will the next great works of literature taught in high schools be transmitted via eMoT!c0nS
I don't loathe change, i'm not one of those people who believe that anyone born in the 90’s has nothing valuable to contribute to any forum. Its just that im tired of being physically abused…yes..abused. Maybe i am too old or perhaps im just stubborn and reluctant to change but could I hardly be blamed for falsely interpreting a girl's advance to “tweet me” as being a lewd eastern European sex act currently seeding in my download manager. I'd be lying if I didn't say she slapped the taste of raw sugar cane back into my mouth. Word of note..frozen peas work best…
Did I miss the memo?..did I not get that email attachment?..why didn't anyone tell me that the Ebola virus was on the loose like SARS (the killing virus, not South African Revenue Services-tho its hard to tell the difference) on a fresh manila envelope, cause with the lack of physical social interaction that people do nowadays you would think everyone was a prisoner to their own leper colony.
Whilst i’m not gonna go into a long drawn epilogue bashing Tom and his Myspace or Mark Zuckerbergs brainchild, cause im all for the social platform that networks such as facebook and myspace provide, but not when day to day interaction feels like we living a real life The Sims game. Where people seem more content living in the virtual world than the real world. We translate every human emotion over our broadband connections whether it be from behind our keyboard or mobile incarnations, and all you ladies can argue all you want but you cant tell me that spending every waking moment typing back and forth over a virtual messenger can substitute Hugh Grant’s monologue in Notting Hill…
Now don’t for one second get me wrong. I’m not against technological advancement. I’m in no delusion that im not a total geek in every sense of the word. I get hard every time Steve Jobs gets on stage just like the rest of my kind and I have a storm ship trooper suit in my closet between the X-men utility belt and Pc Format magazine centerfold. No amount of holy water could clean my internet history. Nevertheless, all I ask is that we not lose ourselves in the Matrix of it all..cause lets face it..if shit starts hitting the fan..do we really want Keanu Reeves being the last hope of the free world??…dude’s getting old….(mmmm…Sandra Bullock in Speed……….