technoculture314-09

An interesting phenomenon that I have noticed cropping up on the net recently is the number of websites that encourage people to share personal anecdotes about humorous or embarrassing things that have happened to them in their daily lives. I'm sure quite a lot of you out there would have taken a look at or at least heard of www.fmylife.com, which is basically a blog where members post stories of things that haven't exactly gone well for them. Some of these are quite light-hearted and amusing, allowing for the undeniable pleasure of finding entertainment in someone else's misfortune. "Today, I had my first day off in weeks. I was excited about getting to sleep in, until my boss called me at 6:30 in the morning to remind me I didn't have to come into work. Thanks. FML.". Thanks to the public yet anonymous nature of the internet people aren't afraid to share stories like this, although it is interesting to consider how many of these stories would be shared on a personal face to face level. If anything I believe people would be more afraid to tell their friends and relatives stories like this than 'faceless' members of a blog on the internet, where the constant updates by other members mean that each individual post is rarely looked over more than once by bloggers. However sometimes FML surprises us with posts that aren't so much amusing as depressing. "Today, was my bachelor party. The only people that showed up were my best man and my father. FML". I struggle to see the point in posting things like this on the internet, as it doesn't exactly elicit a positive response from those reading it. Furthermore if it is compassion or sympathy they are looking for most people know that anonymous forums on the internet are never are good place to look, as people can often be incredibly cynical, making the problem worse. As at least half of the posts on FML are of this nature it calls into question our nature nature of voyeurism and vicarious thrill, as no matter how harsh some of these posts may seem to be, our first reaction is often to laugh. On the other hand in regard to the posts that are actually funny in many ways it is more entertaining to read the posts online than to actually be a witness to them in real life. Could pages like this become a new first choice of entertainment online? These pages are somewhat akin to an online stand up comedy show, with new 'comedians' everyday providing new material for us to enjoy. However the number of more 'serious' posts dominating the blog lead me to believe that only someone with a sick sense of humour could truly enjoy all the misfortune that others are brave enough to share online. My opinion? some things should remain personal. If I want a decent dose of vicarious entertainment id much rather visit www.mylifeisaverage.com, where people share surprisingly funny stories of incredibly banal and normal daily life situations. "Today, my mom told me to clean my room, so I walked to the laundry room to get my laundry basket. I didn't want to carry it so I put it on my back and pretended to be a turtle. I then crawled really slowly all over my house. I still haven't cleaned my room. MLIA". Sometimes its the simplest things that people will find the most amusing