Gong Show

The Net is neutral. In theory and for now.

As long as the First Amendment is upheld via judgment of the Court or taste of our producers.

While connection (high-speed) is democratized, content (highbrow) is not.

Originally conceived to work around an ICBM strike, distributed architecture turns a deaf-ear to filler after filler to monetize and maximize its surplus capacity (equivalent of Trump casino penny slot). The result? Shameless extraverts flush the pipe with sewage, America Got Tastes? Grotesque, sensational and attention-getter. The hidden price of scale with long tail.

Section 230 and self-regulation will not guarantee guardrails e.g. cyber bullying and fake news until and unless it’s too late. Hence, Gong Show descendants are back, this time AI assisted. In full and shameless display. Machine can go down the binary decision tree, but human need nuances, context and yes, out-of-this world (it’s called art).

But the algorithm just told the AI software to plug along, long live ads revenue flow. Long live the King of Madison Avenue.

The business of America is business. Amazon Web Services are not for free. So is SEO.

If listened, one’d hear those Cancel clicks (another show contestant eliminated) every second on the Wild Wide Web (millions of views, but were they bait-clicks). Yet the herd keep coming and heading to the cliff – the altar of attention and attrition. Our modern-day equivalent of virgin sacrifice (Joe versus the volcano) or forced draft: “we the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful ” – Unknown soldier

As if, people – all masochist – have been sentenced and subdued from the beginning of time, only to leave behind primitive tools used to carve symbols in cave. Now, uploading is fast – not as download speed – and almost free (digital superhighway toll).

With more cultures represented, one would think the web become more of an open place and open mind. In fact, this social-techno experiment has proved the opposite: more wars, more walls and more crises/isolation.

What’s going on. Something is going on. But not the way it had previously been thought. Not at the speed and scale as occurred.

Everyone is posting” What’s for dinner?” (it used to be “Guess Who is coming to Dinner”) and everyone recounts “the White House years” (albeit ghost-writing even by an eye-witness janitor): ” I saw the President (LBJ) through an open-door toilet” or ‘G H W Bush tinkling with then new Mackintosh” – Woodward’s Shadow.

How long? Not long.

How loud? Too loud.

We shall overcome in that perpetual Ground-Hog-Day “someday”.

Meanwhile, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly are having the time with digital frontier’s land and virtual railroad grab. Everybody is playing at the margin, collecting huge amount of small change (that add up to a lot). Data mining, mineral mining, and rare earth mining.

As if we all feel too helpless and anaesthetized to protest against a system, that extract and occupy our attention with sensationalism that goes viral (1 cent and a day short) since it’s proof positive that numbers of viewers testify to its “worthiness” of relevant art.

It’s the Dictator’s Dilemma in reverse (if they cut off the Internet, they themselves can’t communicate internally on intranet with coworkers on Signal). If we protested with a social media Sabbath no one would notice our quiet resignation, given billions of replacements online (think of this as the new “offshoring” of eyeballs).

Meanwhile, IT folks try to teach the machine to recognize, to think, to act and to reason responsibly. In one talk, the speaker ventures to volunteer that A.I. can even empathize (oh! that’s offensive to your taste? I am truly sorry).

Try that (teach empathy) first on human.

From Aspirin to Astrology, from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Intelligence – God knows we have tried.

Yet crimes are still here, fentanyl still kills; oppression is still present, and corruption remains (the other day, a door-to-door vendor tried to sell me security cameras for the home).

Has it (the impetus for evil) been dormant and not destroyed?

Long time ago, in rural Kentucky (the Threat that Runs so True), the teacher/author had to repaint his tainted school walls (pupils spitted tobacco) from his own meager salary. Singapore is where it is today in part, due to its iron-grip enforcement: no spitting, no cigarette butts no\ loitering. Filthiness just migrates online then.

A single mile (of discipline) is all it takes. Since charging out of the gate (w/ Netscape), we have wasted a lot of energy and time i.e. trial-error over triviality (the sort that made the original Gong Show smell like flowers). Remember Myspace? Friendster? Even Twitter.

Instead of flying cars, we’ve got 140 characters – Thiel. Some penned up poison finally found its outlet. Let’s outdo them, lets podcast again: Sandy Hook, Pizza gate etc… Everything and anything all at once, and in progress etc.… like Pollock randomly (but in control) throws paint on the floor.

How long, not long. We shall overcome, on the Net as it is in real life, someday. We will fulfill our potential and destiny. Just another carving and one last paint on the wall, so someday, they will know we were here, albeit for only 15 minutes.

The Gong show contestants (signed release and paid actors) had theirs.

Now it’s our turn. Those who have stood by, helplessly watched the aggressive march and parade, torch and all, now in digital City Hall.

We shall replace the “Gong show” with our Show i.e. context, history, nuances, art, truth, taste and beauty. It’s like a collapsible Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessible to all. The way is now here. Where is the will? or one just wants to be listened to. The web is quite the wrong place for that therapeutic need.

That which elevates with empathy, elegance, expertise and eternality will flourish in gong-less shock and awe, like a museum at all hours, as if grass could grow on the Internet. As if life would go on forever, since no one wants it to press SKIP (or BONG).

When you see it, you’ll know it. It’s part of the discipline. Meanwhile, keep searching.

Shakespeare was right (life is like a stage or of late, an Internet platform). It’s up to us – to play our assigned role of a life well lived. Not the unfortunate one, who died for the ungrateful.

The connection might be democratized, but its content is not.

In the end, when all sorted out, there will be reward and recognition to validate those 16 mm out-takes which survived the cutting room, real-life grit “Do it again, one more take, just for my mother”, not those Gong-Show rejects. The Net is neutral, for now, until.