The Rant-O-Matic

Sometimes I just wonder; who the hell do we think we are? Just what gives us the right to dismiss people that don’t agree with our own points of view? What makes us so bloody important? So righteous? So freaking perfect?

I’ll tell you – nothing.

Which then begs the question of why was it so important that one of the first things that Julia Gillard did when assuming the prime ministership was to get herself a Twitter account? What right did we have to essentially demand it happen before we recognised her as the leader of government in this country?

We had no right. If Julia Gillard, or any person for that matter, has no interest in joining a particular online service then that’s their choice. We shouldn’t expect it and we certainly shouldn’t demand it. But that’s what’s happening and I, for one, strongly oppose this ideal that just because we’re on the internet than we’re the most important people around and everyone should pay attention to us.

Like it or not, the vast majority of voters in Australia are not on Twitter. They may have a Facebook profile, but they don’t use it to participate in political discussion. So to think that a political leader has to bend to our will, and communicate on a medium that we find acceptable is utterly absurd. It’s elitist and repulsive. There is nothing about it that makes us better than those other extremist lunatics whom are often at the receiving end of our ridicule.

The online community is in dire need of a long, hard look at itself. Just because we think we’re special, just because the mainstream media has decided that Twitter is a perfectly acceptable base on which to write stories, just because the internet is becoming as ubiquitous as tap water doesn’t mean that we should essentially be forcing people to participate in our discussions.

It’s even more arrogant when you consider just how small the percentage is of people who participate in, say, politics outside if their cosy, digital lounge chairs. How many people from Twitter have submitted a well-written opinion to their local HoR member to express their thoughts on government policy? How many wrote submissions to government enquiries that were asking for such things? I small, small number I’d bet. The irony is almost delicious.

Wake up to yourself internet. You’re not the most important people in this country. You have no special right of access to people. In most cases, you’re nothing more than that rambling old man in the street that spouts endless nonsense day after day. Get over yourself.

It doesn’t matter that we’re of the firm belief that technology is the way forward. It doesn’t matter that we consider Twitter, Facebook and all that other stuff “the shit” when it comes to communicating. It doesn’t matter that mainstream media is having a massive wank over this new fangled thing that makes it so simple to gather opinions on an event without having to do actual journalism. It just doesn’t matter. Under no circumstances should we be demanding that someone who has no interest in this stuff partake in it – especially when the vast majority of us refuse to participate in the mediums that others do. It’s obnoxious. It’s disgusting. It needs to stop.