The Internet scares me. I remember simpler times when fun meant running around in circles until we threw up and learning new profanity was the most amusing thing to do.
Though full of information and magic powers, the Internet can be a vehicle for closeted homophobes and racists.
Take for instance the Marc Sheiman-penned “Proposition 8: The Musical.” Debuting on Will Ferrell’s Funny Or Die’s website, the short musical explores the hypocracy of Proposition 8 with lyrics that mention how people against gay marriage just pick and choose experts from the Bible to back-up their arguments.
Full of talented entertainers like Jack Black and Margaret Cho, the musical’s popularity grew rapidly thanks to MySpace and YouTube.
While its messege was well-received by allies of the gay community in the Internet world, it also gave those against gay marriage a chance to type up how they really felt.
Posts ranged from short sentences like “you people are disgusting” to paragraphs so full of hate and homophobia that I wonder how much we’ve really progressed in our fight for equality.
Internet topics like immigration are followed by massive hatred toward fellow human beings. The Orange County Register‘s recent article “Well-Educated and Undocumented” about undocumented students in college had comments like “we can always use more strippers.”
Through the world of the Internet, people are likely to be open about how they feel about certain issues. This can be both good and bad. For instance, a scared teenage boy can use the World Wide Web to express what it’s like to be gay at a young age. While the boy can openly discuss his feelings, he risks being attacked by hateful and intolerant people.
The fact that people use this tool to spit hatred makes me wonder about the kind of world we live in. Then again, for all I know, the person typing all of the hateful comments on the Internet could just be some 12-year-old boy with nothing else to do. Or whatever.
– Julio Salgado