The Internet is SerioSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP

My father introduced me to a new vocabulary term today - the Spruce Horrors. It's a phrase that woodsmen (googling it brings up an essay on prison rape!) used to describe the sense of disorientation and overwhelming fear that comes to one after working in the woods for too long, and then suddenly looking up and realizing that Holy Fuck You Are Lost. The trees all look the same, there are no obvious tracks back to where you are. It is the sense of abandonment that comes from forgetting to think about where you are, as you instead focusing entirely upon what you are doing. And then you look up and remember that you have to haul a twenty pound brush cutter untold miles back to your truck, it's getting dark, and oh no! Coyotes!

In my most ravingly self-congratulatory moments, I like to think that Elevennames tries to bring about a bit of the Spruce Horrors to it's readers.

Then I remember that I alone account for at least ten of our page hits a day (which is roughly 1/3rd of our total daily traffic) and then I get really depressed. Still, having a successful website that pays my beer tab is like having THE AUDACITY TO HOPE, so Ror.

ANYway, I bring up the issue of disorientation and growing horror (and coyotes!) in regards to Our Tubular Internets after reading this article from Wired magazine discussing griefers on Second Life. The article itself is something of a paean to Something Awful and its forums, so I am naturally incredulous of it's journalistic integrity. Also, it is written about one group of people in an imaginary world attacking another group of people in an imaginary world, and there are much better pieces out there for your perusal.

Who is the audience for that piece? If you give people anonymity, autonomy, and free reign to do whatever the hell they please, is anyone honestly amazed that suddenly, the sky will start to rain dancing penises? Are you new to the internet? Is this 1995? Hey, have you seen this cool new image called goatse yet? Anyone who isn't aware that sometimes people online are very impolite is probably an old person, and for serious, the baby boomers should all just be turned into soylent green already anyway.

The whole idea of Second Life is (to me) black-heartedly disgusting, the worst manifestation of the Spruce Horrors that I can currently think of in an online context. You are given the privilege to pay for your imagination, and in such a way that you can actually flaunt it in front of other people (which consist at least partially of sex-starved singles, sex-starved furries, and other sex-starved potpourri). Way to profit off of a childlike sense of exploration and interaction (and sex-starvation).

You douchebags.

The entire issue is at once a metaphor of colonialization and one of fucking playground politics. People have found out that on one hand, there's some money to be made off of this Internet thing, and seek to export it's heady spices back to their Real World, where their bank accounts may grow fat without much work (insert self aware pause). On the other hand, a group of people are given a playground in which to work their imaginations, and some people are being mean, and making fun of others. To say that civilization is at work with either would be to demean the very idea of civilization - administrators will either take action against the mean kids, or else the colonialists and the natives will be left to duke it out before the watching eyes of some bemused onlookers. Given that money is involved, the cynic in me thinks that it's more likely that steps will be taken to ensure a Safe Business Environment, but then I remember that, hey! It's the internet, and there are much more important things out there.

The Spruce Horrors, as you can see, are very easy to suffer from.