As a long time “veteran” of the online community — I’ve been going online since AOL 2.0 and Prodigy’s “videotext” days — I have come to be repulsed by the direction of internet discourse in recent years.

The comments in response to this article aren’t too awful but there is an added element of closeness since I am a long time friend of the owner of the restaurant in question. Obviously I am biased but it’s both typical and understandable that the comments would be generalized and lacking specific details to which I’m privy. Still, experiencing such a close degree of separation to a news story does nothing to soften the edge I have toward the repellant direction that online discourse has taken. This is good commentary about media permeation and saturation. For example, one reason that zombies are so popular these days is the notion that there are so many of them, and that used to be people, but are now inhuman — much like how a story or video will go viral and the “people” depicted in those stories and videos are no longer people but figures that represent some vague notion of humanity.

Regarding the issue at hand, well, Anthony Nguyen has always done his best. That’s all I’ll say about that.

1. chupto likes this
2. randomberlinchick likes this
3. sarka posted this