Shut Up And Listen 102

Online Globalization
Last week (not the one just ending, which I had off from school), actually it was last Wednesday to be more precise, I was sitting in my poli-sci tutorial and was bored out of my fucking skull. The topic of the week was globalization and it was dreadfully boring because no one was willing to do anything other than rehash the reading we had to do for it. The readings are meant to give a basis for us to form opinions and then hopefully take that basis and move on, you know? So, as I was saying, the topic was globalization and they were just repeating what they read. They were talking about how big corporations were benefiting at the expense of third world countries and the poor elsewhere also (yes, they needed readings to figure that out), and how Americanization and a McWorld are bad and shit like that. Pretty standard stuff. Because I was so bored, I tried to steer the conversation into more of an open field of globalization, one that would require, I don’t know, independent thought (a bit much to ask of first year university students I am well aware) by bringing up the global culture that is emerging from the Internet. People around the world all meeting online and talking and becoming accustomed to one another and learning about how other countries and cultures do things: perfect example of globalization on a cultural level.
	Of course, I was shot down as my TA moved the discussion right back to economics and we finished out the remaining twenty minutes hearing people say the exact same things over and over and over and over again. Well worth the time, don’t you think?
	Since I was thinking about this, I thought I might as well think out loud a little here. The Internet is a much more subtle form of globalization than people think. Yes, they do recognise it as a major tool in the twenty-first century and all that shit, but I don’t think they realise the extent to which it is changing how people think.
	Firstly, there’s just the idea of having friends that you only know via a username. I find myself often referencing things my online friends have said while talking to people in “real life” while they just go “Who’s that?” Others I’ve talked to online have expressed the same experiences. They’ll say something like “Oh, that reminds me what my friend Andy said the other day,” and the person they’re talking to will respond, “Who’s Andy?” This is the point where the first person must relate the knowledge that Andy is someone they met on a message board.
	In grade eleven, my friend Steve was saying he had a girlfriend online and we told him it didn’t count. Which it didn’t. Still doesn’t. But that’s a different case from just regular friends. Mainly because it’s fun to pretend to be someone else and flirt and shit, but that loses its charm when you’re pretending to be a comic fan on a message board where there’s no real fun in fooling people. Now, I’m not saying it’s not possible to meet someone online in a romantic way, I’m saying that my sixteen-year old friend’s supposed girlfriend didn’t count. 
	If I’m going to be honest about online people, I meet my best friend online. You may all remember the man, the icon, the living legend, the cocksucker, Troy Doney. Hell, I remember the first time we really talked (have I told this story?). I had downloaded yahoo messenger about two weeks earlier because my friend Karl (Smith--writer of Cataract Resin) told me to, so we could talk, and then I started adding more people. So Troy posted at the Authority boards with us and wanted to talk with some people there like many of us, but the fucker couldn’t work yahoo. I’m serious. He e-mailed me with some message like “Hi, Chad, this is Troy Doney aka Strategist at the Authority boards. I’m having trouble working yahoo messenger. How the fuck do I do it?” So I helped him.
	Karl had told me about Troy though before I got a chance to talk with him. See, Karl had talked to Troy a little and also Troy’s sister. Karl spent an hour trying to convince Troy’s sister to read Transmetropolitan (which everyone should) and through the course of that discussion, Troy and his sister appeared as close. She was talking about how he was going to take care of her when they were grown up and shit like that. So Troy came off as a little weird from Karl’s description. Luckily, I didn’t let that scare me off of talking to the man. We talked a few times over the next week and became very fast friends.
	And here it is about a year and nine months later and we still talk when we can. We trade e-mails much more though, as sometimes it’s hard to coordinate our schedules to chat via yahoo. My fondest memory involving him was during the summer when I was online at maybe two in the morning when he comes online. Well, actually, it was his then-girlfriend, codenamed “That Crazy Bitch” by us. She tells me that Troy wants to talk to me, but won’t be on until forty minutes later and that I should talk to her. The fucker, I know. So I talk to her in a way that will get Troy in trouble. You know, lying through my teeth about shit Troy’s told me. The funny part is, she doesn’t seem to care what I say he’s said. In fact, when I talked about how much of a whore he is (well, compared to me, he is) and all she responded was “I’m the best he’s had” and then launched into a weird obsessive-like rant about how she and him are meant to be. Hence the codename. 
	Wait. What was I talking about originally? Oh yeah. Internet globalization. Well, uh, it’s a much ignored method that will help determine the course of the future. Original thinking, you see.