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5Mar/101

Defeating Big Brother by Getting Him to Kill Himself (or, You wanna spy on me? Spy on THIS!)

Too much speculation about the end of the world revolves around humanity's doom being involuntary. Common prophecies of the End Times predict a natural disaster, supernatural power, invading aliens, attacking armies or plague forcing destruction upon us.

I tend to side more with T.S. Eliot. The end comes not with a bang, but a whimper. (Link.) In fact, I'll see Eliot's timid Apocalypse and raise it. I say the end doesn't just come softly, but with a smile, and instead of catching us as we run, we all stroll toward it willingly.

I'm an optimist.

This vision of gleefully marching to our doom came to me when Reality TV first emerged. Though Reality TV initially seemed just a way for networks to suck power from writer's unions, I often wonder, in the paranoid fever that is my default mental state, if Reality TV was also designed as a way to make the presence of cameras so-called "cool." Allegedly unscripted, allegedly live filming of vacant idiots doing nothing seemed a clever plan to get kids used to the idea of being spied upon all the time.

"I can do nothing too! So why not cameras on me? OMG! I'm famous! So kewl!"

I remember a time when security cameras were a source of agitation. People were much more vocal with their annoyance about being watched. Many felt like Big Brother was just looking for an excuse to come down on them. Now you can't go anywhere urban without being spied on, probably anywhere period.

So as Reality TV has flourished, it seems Big Brother is winning. Rather than the nightmare vision of 1984 where every move was tracked against a person's will, we are all signing up for Facebook, MySpace, just begging for ways to send our private thoughts and feelings out there for anyone to see.

Big Brother didn't have to do a thing. But maybe he should have. It seems His Bigness didn't heed the warning: Be careful what you wish for.

There are several methods of conflict that revolve around information overload. Whether it's a filibuster, a denial-of-service attack, endless theories and/or lame jokes about the JFK assassination, or everyone claiming to be Spartacus, in the end, the truth is obscured under a mountain of data.

So what ended up happening was, as Big Brother moved in, humanity took up the challenge. "Oh yeah? You wanna spy on me? Spy on this! Check out these 600 identical pictures of my kid riding a tricycle! Read every detail of my thoughts on this particular TV show. Learn the status of my morning coffee, how my toes feel AND whether or not I like the snow! That enough data for ya?! 'Cause that's just for starters!"

I can see Big Brother, in his corporate telecom boardroom, reduced to tears. "I just want the info on how you're disobeying me. I don't want all this inane crap. Overload! Overload!"

Of course, BB will have his systems to comb through the data, but why not annoy the crap out of him with every minute detail of our lives?

Some people have worried that the internet would drain our humanity. I totally disagree. The internet is a humanity amplifier. We're each all of our personalities to the nth.

So the next time some TV show is showing vacant idiots doing nothing, don't just change the channel. Thank them for their efforts to clog up Big Brother's internet tubes, then change the channel.

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Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Filed under: Big Brother, apocalypse, facebook, funny 1 Comment

8Dec/090

All the Glamour, None of the Work: Can I be James Bond’s friend?

I hate those abstract questions that sometimes pop up in job interviews: If you could be a vegetable what one would you be? Sounds like something from an annoying Facebook poll. (Redundant, I know. All Facebook polls are annoying.) Sadly, one of those questions did manage to worm its way into my brain's busy schedule: If you could be a fictional character, who would you be?

My first impulse was to say Jesus. That would get me into trouble, one for claiming he was fictional and two, for claiming I could be anything like him. The problem as I see it? Jesus was only half god, so I'm over-qualified. Plus, as much as I like to make a point, I'm not willing to be tortured and die for it. Blogging is martyrdom for sissies.

So with Jesus out of the running, the question persisted. If I could be a fictional character, who would I be? I want to be James Bond's friend.

If you've seen one James Bond film, you've seen them all. The only thing that changes is how exotic (as compared to your average Englishman) is the babe who teams up with Bond. Will she be Near Eastern European or Far Eastern European? Or will they really mix it up and make her Latina? Or African-American? The JB writers must be nearing the end of their Encyclopaedia of Ethnic Hotties. You'll know the franchise has jumped the shark when he's banging an Eskimo named Fukluk.

Another Bond stock character is the poor woman I refer to as the "throwaway babe" for her sad predictable destiny. She's just a working English lass who realizes it's part of her job as a temp at Her Majesty's Secret Service to service James and immediately get murdered, so the audience can hate the bad guy even more and James doesn't have to run the risk of her turning into a stalker.

Bond confronted by all his ex-partners (assuming any of them lived) would make for an entertaining daytime talk-show marathon. Gadget your way out of that one, Bond!

Whether it's killing or fornicating, James never takes a break. He's a workaholic. M and Q are always getting annoyed at James, which is also a full time job. Seems like everyone has a tough job in the Bondiverse, except for James Bond's friend. Most of the time he doesn't even have a name, but he's the guy I want to be. He gets all the glamour with none of the work.

He's the one always chillin' at his estate on the Mediterranean coast, lounging in the sun among several smokin' hot babes who have no purpose other than to be smokin' hot babes. Actually they do have one other function: to leave the deck in a huff when I tell them to amscray so I can talk to my boy, JB.

Job responsibilities include hanging out with hotties, drinking fine wines, and spending five minutes every couple of years saying, "The guy with the eye patch went that way."

Sound easy? Hell yeah! But being JB's BFF is not without its occupational hazards. Sometimes the Bond movies really jazz up the formula and James Bond's friend gets killed (in addition to the poor English throwaway babe) which causes Bond to go on a murderous rampage. Yeah, like he wasn't going to already.

That will be my out. "Colonel Russkibad, you don't have to shoot. James is coming after you whether you kill me or not. Now try some of my vodka..." Then I'll be back to my dream job: doing nothing.