Wow. The depravity of everyone. Civilization just helps to suppress our brokenness and fallenness.The Breakdown
Back in the late ’90s, one of my best friends was a guy named Josh Harris. He formed a company called Jupiter Communications which wrote all those crazy research reports in the Web 1.0 days that said Internet advertising, broadband and e-commerce would shoot to the moon like a rocket over the first decade of the Internet. And they were right.
Josh had a front row seat to the Internet Revolution writing those reports, and he made around $80 million when Jupiter went public. He lost it just as quickly when he started experimenting with technology.
One day, he came to my office and couldn’t look me in the eye.
It was one of those horrible, ugly New York City winter days. The ones where it’s not cold enough for the dirty snow to completely melt from the pounding sleet, making the walk to get a cup of coffee feel like theIditarod . Josh rocked back and forth in a chair and repeated a couple of random phrases to me: “The jig’s up, can’t do it, jig’s up, can’t do it–gotta get off the grid.”
I tried to comfort him. I explained that he used to be one of my favorite people to break bread with, that he had inspired me to try and do great things, and that I’d learned more from his outlandish failures than I ever did from my modest successes. However, he had become boring and obsessed with his press clippings. “Did you see Vanity Fair? We’re in the Post tomorrow!,” he would tell me toward the end. I’d ask what the press was for, and the answer placed him directly between Andy and Paris on the unknown-but-famous-anyway spectrum: “For being me!”
Later that slushy day, Josh took a couple of bags and the last of his dwindling fortune to his newly acquired apple farm in upstate New York. He had literally–two beats, please–bought the farm.The Background
Josh had spent the last couple of months working on two art projects examining what happens when you put yourself under non-stop Internet surveillance.
One was called Quiet and one was called “We Live in Public.” The first, Quiet, was an art project that was famous in New York City’s downtown circles around the turning of the millennium. Josh had a couple dozen folks in a bunker for 30 days living in “pods” (bunks) that included cameras watching their every move. He tried to get me to move into the “hotel,” but I knew it wasn’t a good idea when I saw the people running around naked on psychoactive drugs, firingsubmachine guns. That’s not an exaggeration–that was happening in the basement of this Tribeca building.
You’ll see all this footage if you see the movie. It was madness.
Quiet was shut down by Giuliani’s nightclub task force as a millennial cult 18 months before 9/11–the milestone by which most New Yorkers, including myself, mark our lives. For me, everything in my memory is eitherpre- or post-9/11. Quiet, Silicon Alley Reporter and my adolescence are all pre-9/11. Adulthood, gravitas and the fallout from the undiagnosed PTSD are all post-9/11. (But that’s for another medium, perhaps one with covers as opposed to headers).
In the second experiment, “We Live in Public,” Josh put a couple dozen cameras all over his loft and recorded the inevitable breakdown of his life with the love of his life, Tanya. It was after “We Live in Public” that Josh came to see me, a character witness to his nervous breakdown, before heading to the farm.
People in the chat rooms for “We Live in Public” were vicious to Josh and his then-girlfriend Tanya. They lost their empathy for the people living under video surveillance, and what had started as a fun time playing with technology turned into a nightmare. The audience tortured the subjects in the box–Milgram would have been proud.
It took Josh five years to recover from the “We Live in Public” experiment. I’m wondering how long it will take the rest of us to hit rock bottom and recover.Godwin’s Law Meets Harris’ Law
Josh’s experiments in 2000, during which he and his cohorts became obsessed with their view counts, parallels today’s blogging, social media and YouTube “arms race.” In his experiment, the technology robbed the subjects–and their audience–of every last ounce of empathy.
Digital communications is a wonderful thing–at least at the start. Everyone participating in digital communities is eventually introduced to Godwin’s Law: At some point, a participant, or more typically his or her thinking, will be compared to the Nazis. But that’s only part of the breakdown. Eventually, you see the effect of what I’ll call Harris’ Law: At some point, all humanity in an online community is lost, and the goal becomes to inflict as much psychological suffering as possible on another person.
Harris’ Law took effect last year when Abraham Biggs killed himself in front of a live webcam audience on life-streaming service JustinTV. The audience’s role? They encouraged him to do it.
Harris’ law took effect in October of 2006, when Lori Drew, a grown woman, created a fake alias on MySpace (”Josh Evans”) in order to psychologically torture 14-year-old Megan Meier. Drew started a online love affair with Megan as “Evans” before pulling the rug out and viciously turning on her victim. This “cyber-bullying,” as the press likes to call it, resulted in Megan killing herself.
Harris’ Law took effect in October of last year when Choi Jin-sil killed herself, reportedly over the fallout from Internet rumors. The bullying in Korea has become so intense that you’re now required to use your Social Security Number to sign up for a social network. This lack of anonymity is one of the most enlightened things I’ve heard of from one of the most advanced–if not the most advanced–Internet communities in the world.
Ownership of one’s behavior? Who knew?!?!?
I’m sure some of the wacky Internet contingents will flame me for saying that anonymity is a bad thing, but the fact is that anonymous environments create the environments in which Godwin’s and Harris’ Laws apply. What’s the point of starting these communities if they eventually end in pain and suffering? Anonymity is overrated in my book. (Whistle-blowers are an exception, and last time I checked, anyone can anonymously drop an envelope in a mailbox, so it’s not like the Internet needs to be there for that).Internet Asperger’s Syndrome (IAS)
I’ve come to recognize a new disorder, the underlying cause of Harris’ Law. This disease affects people when their communication moves to digital, and the emotional cues of face-to-face interaction–including tone, facial expression and the so called “blush response”–are lost (More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FxwHfoWdS8 ).
In this syndrome, the afflicted stops seeing the humanity in other people. They view individuals as objects, not individuals. The focus on repetitive behaviors–checking email, blogging, twittering and retiring andys–combines with an inability to feel empathy and connect with people.
Now, I’m not using this new term to make light of Asperger’s Syndrome. Far from it, I jsut can’t deny the fact that the evolution of people’s behavior online eventually parallels Asperger’s. I feel I’m within my rights as pundit to reconstitute the idea of Asperger’s to explain my own experiences and thoughts. Although I’ll understand it if you, as someone affected in some way by Asperger’s, claim your right to flame me for “hijacking” the disease. Such is the life of linguists in the age of sound-bites over debate, and skimming over reading.
If you do choose to flame me, I’d ask that you attempt to throttle back your IAS and see me not as an email-producing object, but rather as a 38-year-old searching for answers at the mid-way point in his life, when his collective experience equals his remaining time to experience life. That’s really who I am–just another kid on verge of being old who spends a lot of time thinking about the half-way mark. Be gentle with me.
Back to the point: In IAS, screen names and avatars shift from representing people to representing characters in a video game. Our 2600’s and 64’s have trained us to pound these characters into submission in order to level up. We look at bloggers, people on Twitter andpodcasters not as individuals, but as challenges–in some cases, “bosses”–that we must crush to make it to the next phase.
The dual nature of Asperger’s, from my understanding, is that it makes the individual focused on very specific behaviors–obsessively so in many cases–while decreasing their capacity for basic empathy and communication. It’s almost as if you trade off intensity in one area for common decency and communications in another area–not that the person has a choice.
Well, trading off people’s feelings for page views and Twitter followers sounds familiar to me.What’s the Damage (Partner)?
One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because the dozen negative comments under every blog post I wrote started wearing me down. I’d write for an hour and the immediate reward was four people, under 12 different accounts, slamming me. Some were people I had fired, others were mentally unstable folks but, in many cases, they were normal people suffering fromIAS.
As you know, I moved to this email newsletter to get away from the IAS factor on blogs. It worked for the first four months, but last month, someone flamed me, calling me an idiot and my missive “garbage.” It was the first time any one of the 12,000 or so people on the list ever flamed me.
Now, I consider myself a fairly thick-skinned, tough person, but I realized that I had not emailed you in a month, and that it was probably because of that short email. The 12k suffered due to a three sentence flame by just one person, probably suffering fromIAS.
I’ve had a couple of folks introduce themselves to me in the past couple of years and say something to the effect of “Oh, I wrote this horrible thing about you but I didn’t really mean it. I really respect your work.” They are normally very uncomfortable when this happens. Sometimes, they are even shaking and stuttering. I typically pretend I don’t know what they’re talking about and tell them it doesn’t matter–a complete lie. Typically, I know exactly what they said, because you remember when folks say something nasty. I’ve come to the conclusion that all I can do is forgive them and move on.
The switch, from an initial lack of empathy to cowering in shame from their own behavior, is telling. It proves to me that otherwise normal folks will lose their empathy online, only to regain it the instant they face the “object” (aka real person) of their scorn.What’s at stake?
We’re all canaries in the coal mines now, like Josh Harris was back in the ’90s. We’re harvesting our lives and putting them online. We’re addicted to gaining followers and friends (or email subscribers, as the case may be), and reading comments we get in return. As we look for validation and our daily 15 minutes of fame, we do so at the cost of our humanity.
Today, we’re destroying each other with words, but teaching ourselves to objectify individuals and to identify with aggressors will result in more than psychological violence. This behavior will find its way into the real world, like it did when Wayne Forrester murdered his wife Emma over a change in herFacebook status, from married to single.
It’s only a matter of time, sadly, until this loss of empathy will hit the real world. We’re training ourselves to destroy other people, and there’s a generation growing up with this in their DNA. They don’t remember a world when communications were primarily in the real world.
The threats we’ve seen against women online are a warning sign of what’s to come–we’re all going to face this aggressive behavior and we’re all going to withdraw from these communication services.
I’m 100% convinced that the trend in 2010 and forward will be people trying to remove their virtual presence on sites like Flickr, YouTube and Facebook. Already, I’ve noticed people are moving their settings to private–perhaps something they should have done from the start.
What a shame, because there is so much gained from sharing.Rafe Loses His Empathy
No one is immune to IAS, I’ve learned. Just yesterday, one of my old friends, Rafe Needleman, got suckered into the blogging trap of trying to get page views. He printed a story entitled “How to be the most hated person on the Internet: Five role models.” [Here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10150167-2.html ]
Yes, you guessed it, he included me in the piece. My crime? As he describes it, I’ve “taken to acting like a new-money rock star, publicly buying flashy cars, strutting around the conference he produced with Arrington with his two mascot bulldogs, calling his Twitter followers the ‘Jason Nation,’ and then telling bloggers he’s too good for the medium, opting to write instead to a private e-mail list. His weapons of choice: arrogance and money.”
Wow, thanks, pal!
First off, I bought the Tesla because it’s better for the planet. Oh, heck… Who am I kidding: I bought it because it’s really sexy and fast–and good for the planet. Probably in that order. Guilty as charged! Also, I show it to everyone, Twitter about it constantly and I could care less if people have a problem with the fact that it’s expensive. So what? Who cares? It’s just a car, and it’s drool-worthy because of the technology, not the price tag.
Also, if you’re going to hate on me because Taurus and Fondue are the most lovable dogs in history of dogdom, well, I think that’s kind of low.
Since the time of Rafe writing his piece, I’ve been involved in a very long thread with the other members of the “most hated” list, including Mike Arrington and DaveWiner. Rafe regretted doing the piece. However, I’m not surprised he did it.
Rafe has a goal: To get more traffic for the withering CNET brand. We are just objects to solve this problem. Rafe dehumanized his friends in order to make them objects that get him to the next level.
It’s classic IAS.
We’re Donkey Kong to him. These big, sad gorillas that he needs to take down to get to the next level. It’s all a game, but the hurt feelings can be real. Rafe now has to go to bed for the next couple of nights knowing that he’s taken someone who is his friend–namely, me–and thrown him under the bus. For the next couple of years, folks will reference that I’m “the most hated guy on theinternet” when, in fact, my life is filled with love and joy.
Next time I see Rafe in person, he is going to do the whole nervous, coy “I really didn’t mean it, you know I respect what you’ve done” thing and I’ll say “Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter.”Didn’t you ask for this?
The classic argument when someone “famous” gets beat up is to say “Didn’t you ask for this?” Well, actually, no. The reason I got into blogging was not to be famous or to get attention. It was simply to have an intelligent discussion with people I respected. The people I thought were interesting were debating stuff in the blog format, so I was drawn to it.
Now, the entire blogosphere has collapsed on itself to the point at which a respectable journalist like Rafe is so desperate to get to the top of Techmeme, he has to rip his friends apart. Not to single Rafe out; this is occurring daily. People find the 20 people at the top of the hill and rip them apart, hoping to move up themselves.
Steve Jobs has had his personal life ripped apart by otherwise normal journalists who are obsessed with invading his privacy, under the guise that he should bear his soul to us. It feels to me like these Jobs-obsessed bloggers and so-called journalists won’t be happy until they can just stream Jobs’ next doctor visit.
Oh, the humanity of it. It’s really disgraceful.Wrapping up
Thanks to the 17 people out of 12,000 who made it this far. I know this has been a rambling email and it could have been constructed better.
In summary, how we treat each other does matter. It matters because, without empathy, our lives are shallow, self-centered and meaningless.
The Internet and technology are turning on us, just like the story in “We Live in Public.”
Right now, I’ve got over ten thousand of you to share my thoughts with, until such time as you decide to crush and beat me down by hitting the respond key to this email and flaming me. If you do that, I’ll have to retreat again, but I’m not sure what’s left except the real world. Are we going to destroy ourselves to the point at which we unplug the Internet? Are we going to have to create private areas for discourse and lose the “Open Web” gestalt?
These are just some ideas I’m putting out there for you to consider. If you like, hit the reply key and share some thoughts with me.
Did I mention, I love you all? Each and every one one of you, including the guy who flamed me last time.
best regards,
Jason McCabe Calacanis
PS1: Mike Arrington was spit on in Germany this week, and had death threats last month. He’s now taking a month off from blogging.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/01/arrington-takes.html
PS2: Some press regarding “We Live in Public”
http://www.mahalo.com/We_Live_in_Public_Reviews
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939428.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&nid=2562
PS3: Today I started “empathy day” on Twitter. The concept is simple: say something nice to someone and put #empathyday at the end. You can do this on Facebook or your blog if you like as well.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=empathyday
I like what the writer wrote:
In summary, how we treat each other does matter. It matters because, without empathy, our lives are shallow, self-centered and meaningless.
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