I’ve been part of the world internet community for a number of years now… six or seven at least. I’ve been a part of various groups and sects. From arbitrary fandoms to deep technical and philosophical groups I’ve been a participant a contributor and a creator, it comes with many years integrating yourself into a global culture. Something I have always been painfully aware of though is Internet Snobbery. That is, everyone on the internet looking down their nose at everyone else on the internet. And I’ve done it too.
I mean, let’s look at a few of the billion examples. Microsoft users and Apple users are really looked down upon by Linux users (not that Microsoft and Apple users really care, they are too busy looking down at each other). Lately I’ve been thinking of making my system a dual-boot, Ubuntu or Fedora and Microsoft Windows Vista (don’t get me going on the XP snobs, many of whom don’t even really know why they hate Vista) and almost all of the guides speak in such a pretentious way often adding in notes about how one should just ‘trash Microshit all together’
I’m sorry, I thought I googled ‘tutorial’ not ‘your incredibly immature and biassed opinion on why you hate Microsoft because they are successful’.
But that’s just one example, us webdesigners are the absolute worst for drawing lines in the sand and daring others to cross them, it’s like we’re trying to create some sort of artistic objective rather than the ideal where art is subjective, coding makes it really easy to quantify art, coupled with the fact that you can be totally unknown online makes people seem bolder and more able to say things that they would never dream of saying to someone’s face.
Like, I was swimming the internet and stumbled upon a group of tutorial comments meant for people who had any questions on the material, and someone asked a pretty standard (albiet a little dumb) question about the tutorial and the tutorial writer swooped down in a fit of rage and railed on the newbie for asking such a stupid question and several others rallied with the tutorial owner, until the website’s moderator stepped in… the best part of this story… the moderator was accused of ‘trying to start a flame war’ I mean… really. Maybe they were just done with people making someone new feel uncomfortable.
And I remember that feeling well from when I started web design. People with domains were on a high plateau of existence than those of who did not, and those who were hosted on someone else’s domain were at least higher than us Geocities kids. And how much HTML you knew versus page builder, and your graphics skills, your hit counter, your affiliates. And it was all but impossible to convince old websiters to affiliate with newbies and help given was often condescending and sarcastic. Everyone wants you to get better but no one would even dream of helping you.
It seems like everywhere you go online nothing is really good enough for everyone else.
I love review sites that do ‘unrequested reviews’ too. You know what I call that? Flaming. Plain and simple, you write a whole page detailing why someone else has a crappy page that no one asked for you are a flamer. And these are the people who whine when anyone sends them a one liner that says ‘your site sucks’.
Or maybe I’m just really tired and there is no spoon.
I got approved for the Magical Mystery Tour Fanlisting
And to Amber, you just need to take a leap of faith. If you fail go home, but no one will ever criticize you for trying. Or if they do I’ll chase them down with a beating stick, you are incredibly smart and creative, you did better than I ever did in school. Plus, just for shits and giggles I looked up how much a freelance webdesigner makes in New York and have decided you will be a millionaire. <333