I love Myf Warhurst. I like the way she knows daggy pop music trivia, I like the way she knows cool rock trivia and I like the way she blushes on TV. But I began to love her when I started following her on Twitter. Obviously I don't feel like I know her, never having met her and all, but I feel like she's a normal woman who has to get on the radio everyday and TV once a week.
And because I love her, I really felt for her when anonymous critics started hoeing into her about the dress she wore to the Logies.
These two things sum up my love/hate relationship with Web 2.0. I love it because everyone (especially me) gets to have their say. And I hate it because more and more, I'm noticing, it brings out the worst in people. Anonymity brings out the catty bitchiness and misogyny that is lurking just beneath the surface in everyday discourse.
Old media, as it's called by 'New Media' types, had the benefit of editing. Someone who knew you personally and had some say in whether or not you held a job, got to read your words and say 'steady on' when things got rough. You had to look that person in the eye and explain why what you've written should be published. More importantly, in my view, was that in Old Media there were by-lines. You had to own what you say. Catty comments about someone's weight or clothes had to printed, on real paper, with your name underneath.
I love the freedom the internet provides for little self publishers like me. And I love the way I can find other real people and read what they think. But I hate the idea that no one needs to own up to hurtful comments, things that probably made Myf go home and cry. And when I read them I felt a bit of Myf's pain. She didn't tweet about it, but then neither would I.
That's the two-headed beast Web 2.0 can be: it makes us all so connected, and yet far enough apart that we don't have to watch each other cry.
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