I am especially hateful of this thing people are calling web 2.0.
Before going off on web 2.0 we shall define it. Web 2.0 is not just AJAX techniques or the proliferation of them. It is more about this thing called "social networking" than anything else.
Social networking has enabled the kind of self important attention seeking behavior that is not only repugnant but reprehensible as well.
I disdain self important, attention seeking behaviour. I can't say that enough. Every shallow, conceited self absorbed person I see online with a webcam, webpage and a blog makes me want to puke.
Especially the females.
I disdain people creating websites with "How to use css to make this one specific style of bulleted list" and operating under the assumption that they are, somehow, providing a useful service to anyone. They only do it so they can look at their statistics and hit counts at the end of the day and, somehow, feel fulfilled in the attention they've received for rehashing css/php/ruby on rails/javascript for the 100th time.
You are not doing anything new. You aren't adding to the collective. Your sole purpose, whether you admit it or not, is to inflate your own ego.
I disdain people creating myspace.com accounts to write endless pages of completely useless garbage, or answering introspective questionares so that others can get a better idea of who they are. Get over yourself.
- No, it's not interesting to know if you have a crush on anyone.
- No, it's not interesting to know what the last thing you did before answering the questionare was.
- No, it's not interesting to know what your favorite color is, what song you're listening to right now, or what mood you're in.
We. Don't. Care. You are not important. God does not love you. No one thinks you are special.
Not only is it not interesting, but you are sacrificing privacy and your right to have it. You are damaging potential relationships by being so fucking open. Intimate relationships thrive in mystery. Where there is no mystery, there will be no interest; Where there is no interest, there will be no mystery.
Being so open makes you less accessible to those who might really care for you, in exchange for sheer quantity of faux friends and people who are just as shallow.
The web 2.0 concept is more than just AJAX techniques. It embodies and enables the prevelance of a shallow mind and a shallow soul all to prevelent today. The type of person who has no value in themselves and instead seeks validation through others.
As someone critical of the new interweb, I am left to wonder. Does publishing my own criticisms of the new medium in a page such as googlepages which utilizes so many web2.0 concepts and methods, make me a hypocrit?
Perhaps. But I appreciate the irony in it.
death to web 2.0.