Online Dating
In recent years, there have been literally hundreds if not thousands of online dating websites springing up all around the internet. All of these websites shout offers like "Find love in 6 months or get 6 months free!". Now, being a single guy myself who has a hard time finding girls that I like, I realize that I am not in the best position to be critiquing an online community whose main goal is to help people like me. However, something about these websites really has me uneasy.
First of all, you never have to face the rejection (real, not online) that for generations has helped turn boys into men. Getting an ice-cold rejection from a beautiful woman hardens your skin and sure, nobody likes it, but it is a necessary experience to face or else we humans would never be able to handle the decades worth of rejections and disappointments that are damn well guaranteed to come.
Secondly, I don't know about you, but personally, a lot of the excitement of a relationship is getting to know the person you are with. I prefer finding things out slowly about my significant other and it seems to me that a relationship where I know so much about a person before I have even met them may get boring pretty fast, but what do I know?
And my largest worry about the online dating scene? How about it's popularity! At the rate it's going, it's almost an inevitability that ten years down the line, the only way to meet a quality girl will be online and I'll be sitting there at my little touch screen computer the size of a damned post-it note creepily inputting my favorite chick flicks.
"Ooh! Love Actually! That's a non-negotiable one, this bitch better fucking love that movie or we've got no future together!"
Online Shopping
I mean...sure, I've done my fair share of buying things (more like helplessly charging my credit card) over the internet and I love the convenience and unbeatable prices online. But online grocery shopping? Is that really necessary? The majority of Americans live within 5 minutes of a fucking supermarket yet people are buying their fruits and veggies online at their computers (presumably while shopping for their future mates)! And we try to place the blame of our country's obesity problem on fast food! Sure, that food is not healthy in the least but blaming fast food places for obesity is like blaming the delicious salmon in my belly for possible mercury poisoning instead of...oh, I don't know, us dumping tons of radioactive waste into the ocean? I digress...People, GO TO THE GROCERY STORE! If you are smart about it, it's cheaper, healthier, and you'll get some valuable exercise while you're at it!
Online Gaming
Three words; World of Warcraft. Having been a part of this phenomenon, I know first-hand the horrors of being addicted to one of the best drug...err games ever made. I played for one year in my college dorm and missed homework assignments, opportunities to meet girls, midterms, food, you name it. My dorm mate broke up with his girlfriend of 2 years (who he met in real life ironically) because she was suffocating him during scheduled online gathering times with his guild (A dedicated community of online friends comprised of everything from 50 year old fathers to 19 year old crackheads). Can you believe that? I'd drop a bitch too if she was trying to hug and kiss me and shiet during a 40-man raid.
None of this is very bad when compared to a couple in Korea who let their baby die after they were busy living World of Warcraft and forgot to take care of her. Let that settle in for a minute and then tell me you don't understand my fear of an eventual future where we will have become an introverted and anti-social society whose lives are so uneventful that slaying a virtual dragon is the most fun we can have.
Online Resources for School
Now I'm going to go on a limb and say that cheating in school prior to the internet was not as prevalent as it is today. Sure, the desire was always there but the means were not. In the technology/information age that I am for better or worse a product of; the means to cheat have finally surpassed the desire. Think about the seriousness of that statement. In today's schools, anyone who has even the smallest desire to cheat can go online to find their answers. There are websites where you can literally buy essays for whatever class you have from political science to the fucking Simpsons for all you potheads in the media/pop culture fields. There even exist sites like academia-research.com where you submit a prompt and some prick like me will write you an essay for some cash.
Not to even mention sites like Wikipedia or Google that straight up do your homework for you. And sure, I used Wikipedia and Google throughout my college stint, but not once did I purchase an essay online. I sure as hell witnessed all of this going on around me though and was even offered money to write one for someone. With no sense of responsibility and the idea that money can buy anything, even homework, it's no wonder the people running this country are all a bunch of corrupt pricks driving our country into the ground.
brilliant