Internet Chronicle

NOVA SCOTIA — Rehtaeh Parsons, a teen who was a victim of the new e-Rape phenomenon in which bullies share images and video of rape on the internet, joined Amanda Todd and other victims of e-Rape bullying in the pantheon of Glamorous Suicide Teen Queens. A memorial slideshow of pictures harvested from Facebook were featured in a Huffington Post story, which also said,

“Look at a young man you know, maybe a son or nephew or family friend, and imagine him as a rapist. Does that disgust you? Then teach him how not to be one, and talk to all the young people in your life what sexual assault is and how to know when consent has truly happened. Maybe then photos like the ones that haunted Rehtaeh Parsons won’t be spread around school hallways but instead will be reported to police, because they will be recognized for what they really are: evidence of a crime.”

As news agencies around the world feverishly post as many pictures of the young, attractive e-Rape victim as possible, the message which is sent to teenage girls is much more salient than the one intended for the teenage boys, who have been told they are rapists until programmed otherwise by caring, all-controlling parents. If you are an attractive teenage girl and a victim of e-Rape, you will surely find the sympathy you need in suicide, as Giovanna Plowman, Rehtaeh Parsons, and Amanda Todd before you.

INTERNET — The “Idea Channel,” a horrifying YouTube production from PBS which aims to educate and entertain within five lighting-fast minutes, has translated television pedagogy to the internet. Surprise! It’s incredibly bad. The painfully hip mustachio’d host Mike Rugnetta rattles off jargon and drops names in front of a backdrop of trendy old vinyl covers as images of his references flash by so quickly one show in 2012 reportedly triggered a wave of epileptic seizures. This “educational” program, tailored to victims of new media whose attention spans have evaporated, generally glosses over deep topics with a few bad jokes and glib statements. The fact that it seems jammed full of good information makes this insipid programming even more dangerous.

In the episode above, Rugnetta asks the question, “Are Cell Phones Replacing Reality?” Among such intellectual gems as, “Ubiquitous computing is awesome and important,” Rugnetta crosses into dangerous territory by calling French Post-Structuralist Jean Baudrillard a “Grumpy Gus.” After a pitiful thirty-second explanation of Baudrillard’s theory, Rugnetta presses the idea that cell phones might replace reality is “alarmist.” To really fill out his unintentionally ironic performance of precisely what Baudrillard has warned against, Rugnetta coldly delivers the verdict, “Being bored stinks, and also we’re more connected and more knowledgeable.” Thank goodness PBS is paying for the “Idea Channel” and funneling all this great knowledge straight to our cell phone. It would really suck to slog through years of sucky, boring media theory.