by
babblingdweeb | April 26, 2007 at 09:15 am
7720 views | 37 Recommendations |
8 comments
It's 1995 and aside from a few dial up ISPs, or your friend in second period that had a friend with Prodigy Internet Service, most people weren't online. A few years later...everyone is online.
Within a short time chat rooms, IRC, instant messengers get popular and the next craze starts to get the media work horse running traditional scare tactics during sweeps week: your kids are having sex...ON THE COMPUTER! Wait what?
Cyber sex is born and the popular (and unpopular) crowd embraces it in a way that makes parents panic like it's 1980 and Regan is having a war on drugs. It's crazy, kids are having sex via their computer! Forget the fact that they are abstaining from physical sex -something preached in every public school- they are thinking about sex. Shame shame.
Late 90s and even today cyber sex is bought and sold in a booming red light district economy. For a few dollars you can read, sometimes hear and even view -heck maybe your friend's friend in 2nd period English class will hook you up for free.
What's next? Cyber drugs of course. I know what you are asking: how do cyber drugs work? That's easy, the same way cyber sex works: you imagine it.
"Users have a totally revolutionary mechanism to deal with peer pressure, and actually to give in to peer pressure, without the negative consequences," he said.
"Users can enjoy both the social benefits of virtual drugs as well as the entertainment associated with drug use, all with no actual drug consumption, [so] the value of taking actual drugs is diminished."
So we had/have cyber sex for those making sure they avoid all STDs -non-public computer use and good anti-virus software not withstanding. Now we have drug use for those not wishing to get high, but get "high".
And now we have virtual drugs, for people so socially inept they can't even manage substance abuse. Even the spottiest, most doleful teenage boys could formerly cope with that kind of very basic social interaction. What's next? What else could be too difficult for nerds to achieve in real life?
It can't be too long until we have virtual real-ale night down the pub, simulated afternoons catatonically watching Trisha while picking one's nose, or online chairs by the fire with pipe and slippers. MySpace already offers the chance for endless obsessive conversations with alienated teenagers about music.
Where will it end? That's the beauty of the Internet, it never ends. Well that is until you have cyber death, but then you have cyber rebirth, cyber heaven, cyber hell, cyber purgatory, cyber ghosts, cyber....
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (8)
at 09:19 on April 26th, 2007
babblingdweeb, this is incredible. Your intro is one of the better ones I've read on NP. Nicely done.
at 08:19 on April 26th, 2007
babblingdweeb, you've constructed this story so skilfully...it shows what can be done to contextualise an issue or trend that has appeared elsewhere. Good stuff, podner.
at 09:19 on April 26th, 2007
babblingdweeb, this is a fantastically-constructed article. Who needs IRC when you have virtual weed?
Good stuff.
at 11:24 on April 26th, 2007
Thanks for the editor love guys-n-gals!
at 15:29 on April 26th, 2007
It's hard not to mark this as good stuff.
at 17:28 on April 26th, 2007
babblingdweeb, I like this story. It's good stuff.
I wish I could write as well as this.
at 00:36 on November 22nd, 2008
I like this story people to not play with sex toys It's good stuff.
at 00:38 on December 4th, 2008
to me, cyber drug is more like virtual consulting that plays with your mind. i wonder if they gonna come up with cyber sex toy next.