Anonymous Is A Threat To The Internet, and Society At Large

"Wow maybe you should go see the show again and pay attention this time. You seem to have missed alot. Too many drinks at the bar before the show?

Cameron Feagin who plays a whore with a heart of gold-she plays an actress hired to be Merrick's friend who actually becomes his friend and cares for him deeply. The elephant man is not playing with cardboard houses and they actually did get into that-you obviously must have been playing with your ice during most of this show.You as a failed actor must have nothing better to do with your time than post inaccurate and silly blogposts."

This was posted by the famous internet commentator "Anonymous" yesterday in response to my friend and fellow rapscallion Andy's brilliant review of Boho's The Elephant Man.

We all know that the internet, if it were a real place, would be the Mos Eisley Cantina:  A wretched hive of scum and villainy, and we must be cautious.  Of course, the Mos Eisley Cantina isn't a real place either, but wouldn't you like to hang out there?  Just once?  I would, and there'd be a sweet limited edition action figure released of C'wan Lathteth...that's my bad ass Star Wars name.  I'd be a smuggler with Jedi powers!

The internet makes fools and morons into actual "people."  It makes a guy who couldn't pass English 101 into an art critic who gets all kinds of free tickets to shows and gallery openings, it makes a redneck into a disaster film director, and it makes Neil LaBute into a thin male model who gets laid all the time.  What I'm saying is:  the internet is perfect for those of us with delusions of grandeur.  You can take nothing and create anything.

Unfortunately, most people just end up showing their true colors on board the web express.  What could be a wonderful place has turned into a cave where a bunch of neanderthals throw rocks at each other because no one can make fire the right way.  You've heard the saying, "Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one?"  Imagine an infinite number of assholes spewing the foulest, smelliest excrement all over the universe.  That's the internet.

I love the internet, actually.  I can have food delivered, stream movies into my TV, and write my incredible missives that thousands of people choose to read.  It is an amazing tool...but it has been misused.  Our technology has FAR surpassed our humanity.  We're barely out of the ocean as a species, and we have access to a network of computers that can control a fucking SPACE STATION?  Show the internet to King Henry the Eighth and he'd have you burned at the stake and then ask his men to figure out how to use it to destroy France.  (Side note:  You can totally destroy France with the internet.)

Here's some new rules for the internet:

1. You want to post anything?  A blog, a comment, a video you made?  You have to sign in with your full name and your social security number...no exceptions.
2. You want to post anonymously?  OK, but it costs $5...reasonable, but you have to decide if your bullshit is worth a fin.

I think these two rules could effectively shut down about 85% of idiots who decide that they want to play "Who's Got The Biggest Inter-Cock?" on someone's random webpage.  I'm a grown-ass man, I sign my name to whatever I say, and I take the consequences.  "But, Eric," you shout (anonymously), "Charging people to use the internet is so WRONG!"  Well, you're wrong.  People used to have a sense of accountability for what they said.  Now it's a witch hunt every single day, in between episodes of looking up free porn.

Why NOT be held accountable?  You've got something to say, great, say it all you want, but hiding behind an Anonymous post is a coward's way out.  You want people to take you seriously, to really listen...put your name on it.  Then we'll know if you're Jon Stewart, Bill O'Reilly, or just a cracker who likes big asses.

-John Taflan