TRIO Twenty-seven: Thomas Hart

G21 Staff Writer

WEB FASHIONS

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AUSTIN, TEJAS - Nobody owns the Web, and that's the most refreshing thing about it.

The FASHION(s) Issue FLISS USSHER delivers a Fashion Statement: LONDON CALLING! The Fashion of the English Queue. POLICY MATTERS: ADAM SMITH, Associate Director of the Beltway's Drug Reform Coordination Network on Czech President Vaclav Havel. TRIO: THOMAS HART castigates "WEB FASHIONS." G21 ASIA RAOUL TESLA with more insights from Manila, the Philippines. BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH thinks Paula Jones is the Ultimate Fashion - Victim. POWERSBOOKS has our literary critic looking at the most FASHIONable books by JOE QUIRK, PETER HAMILTON, & CHRIS BUNCH. TRIO: RADIO RAHEEM on SMAPPIES (Stagnant, Single Middle-Aged Professionals) JENNIFER BLUE's PLANETARY MADNESS looks at YOUR influences! ANOTHER Great Joke of the Day in THE HOUSE OF CARDS! Hello! Use The Message Board HOME

It is my misfortune to happen to write for a web magazine that I love the heck out of, run by a guy who comes from the intellectual side of the great Internet dialogue. Why do I say this? Let me give ya'll the evidence as it has been passed on to me(by way of forwarded e-mails. Thanks, Raheem!) Our man, the "PubMan," as some here call him, sent out this here message this past week, recommending us to the Iola website which is purely from the Alpha Geek side of what the Internet is all about. Lots of mental masturbation about the nature of the medium, artsy-fartsy sites and articles and such.

I understand why he would gravitate to a site like this one: Rod, after all, comes from the ethos of Whole Earth `Lectronic Link, a bunch of aging hippies who followed the clarion call of Stewart Brand and his ilk onto the Internet, and believe that "Information Wants to Be Free." These old farts now take a sort of proprietary Homesteader's Rights stance to all things Internetly. More power to them, says I, but that ain't all there is. As Carlene pointed out in her rant against my first article here, the Web is basically about entertainment.

Me, I got a bigger kick out of the Webtrips site, that I have to admit Rod also recommended giving a look-see, than that Iola crap would ever give me. I laughed my ass off, and THAT is what I consider a damned good web experience. Give me ten of those and less Iolas.

You see, another one of them cloud-cuckoo notions that is prevalent here on the Internet is that people come here for INFORMATION. Bullshit, says I. If you want information, Pilgrim, you got to go no further than that FREE Public Library which you don't give enough tax dollars to down on the corner. They got words flowing for days and days, and in a way that's easy as hell to access: take the book off the shelf!

I know I didn't get hooked into this web thing to follow a bunch of words as I scrolled own the screen. I'm here to be entertained, pure and simple, and I don't want to hear some "rant" by some teen-aged loser, some mental masturbation by some aging hippie who thinks they know what is "Technorealist," or "Rewired," or see some dipsy-doodle explain the gem-like quality of their human soul to me. I'll put up with your kid's Thinking-Things art, but not that!

The reason me, and a lot of Jean and Joe Six-packs, are here on the WWW is to be *entertained* to see some coolness that ain't in the movies or on that Blockbuster commercial just yet. Take your intellectual erudition and your "commentary" and put them in between two covers with the picture of the latest celebrity photo, why don't ya'?

And while I'm at it, let me say this: Ya'll people who talk about the Web as some form of community-building tool, Mr. & Ms. Electric Minds, Ace and Lou 3D Avatars, O Great & Pristine Yatta-dot-org: Eat my shorts!

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