Not having internet at my new place means I revisited the movie collection on my external hard drive. There’s a lot of great stuff on there; there’s also some not-so-great films that weaselled their way in. “You’ve Got Mail” is one of them.
Hey, I do enjoy the odd rom-com, as long as it’s equal parts romance and comedy; that’s why “You’ve Got Mail” never did it for me. But I was desperate for some easy-watching entertainment and I gave it another go. Alas, I still didn’t make it through 2h of Meg Ryan trying to be whimsical, but it did get me thinking.
“You Got Mail”; it’s such a sweet, heartfelt plot…and it could never take place today.
When it came out in ’98, we were still marvelling at the birth of something truly lovely (and it could’ve remained that way). The internet and its online chatrooms provided us with the ability to interact with strangers we’d never have met otherwise. It also gifted us with the potential to build incredible connections, anywhere on Earth. It was still a revolutionary tool in social sciences and human relations.
Then cat-fishing happened. It proliferated, became a phenomenon, which led to a documentary, which in turn evolved into a entire TV series – it is that frequent.
Yup, there’s always an asshole who ruins it for everyone else. I’m going to repeat myself here so kids, let’s all say it together: that’s because human beings are deceitful, egocentric pricks.
Farewell, idealistic possibilities of finding and bonding with someone who’s everything you want in an individual. Oh, you think you’re talking to your soulmate in Argentina? Cute. You’ve actually been confiding your deepest secrets to an octogenarian pedophile from Idaho who’s been wanking off at the idea of you tying your shoelaces.
Humans cannot be taken at face value in real life – even less so on the Internet. The freedom is too vast there: you can be anyone you want, disappear without a trace, and start all over again in another window, on another browser, under a different username.
We had something nice, some degraded it, and now it’s all fucked up and definitely no longer nice. Have you been on Omegle lately?
On Monday morning, in the blinding 9am sunlight, I opened my front door to a man taking a shit a few feet away, facing me. We made eye-contact; I’m grateful we were both wearing sunglasses. He kept at it, periodically wiping himself furiously with tissues (not leaves). He was simply a chavvy dude who chose to openly take a shit in the park, not even attempting to hide in the bushes further down the path, but facing my front door instead.
I was stunned for a few seconds and watched, willingly involving us in a very awkward staring contest, and I think I lost because I looked away first. I had no idea what to do so I carried on my way to work and loudly wished him “GOOD MORNING” as I walked past.
We really can’t even have one nice thing, not even a damn park.
BASIC HUMAN WRITES 