Good morning, Hank. It’s Wednesday, February 21st: Ash Wednesday. I hope that you’re going to church today. Just kidding, you heathen. What are you giving up for Lent, Hank? I’m giving up all foods that taste good. Oh, wait, I already, yeah, hmmm.
Hank, after watching your vlog entry yesterday, two separate commenters, Elizabeth and Carrie Jones, both said that it reminded them of the M. T. Anderson novel, Feed. So, Feed imagines this world where the internet is hardwired into your brain when you’re a baby, and the result of this is that you become sort of mindlessly consumeristic, as opposed to the current state of the world, wherein the internet is not hardwired into your brain and you become sort of mindlessly consumeristic.
Now, obviously, having the entire internet slash television hardwired into your brain when you’re an infant is a bad idea, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that having Wikipedia (pronounced wih kih pee dee uh) inside your brain is a bad idea. In fact, I would have to argue that having Wikipedia inside your brain would be sort of awesome. Uh, the only problem is that you don’t want to have a Wikipedia that can be edited by anyone inside your brain. Like, say that there’s a girl. (Talks off camera to The Yeti) What should we call the girl? Huh? Oh, Sarah! There’s a girl named Sarah.
The Yeti: I don’t know. Is the story good or bad?
John: Can you hear the voice of the yeti? Can you hear the voice of the yeti? She just spoke. Say there’s a girl named Sarah, and you really love her. And you think that she’s awesome and beautiful, and she just got a new haircut and it’s amazing, and, plus, you’re married to her. When you go to Wikipedia, and you type in “the yeti,” or “Sarah Green,” you should see a picture of Sarah and you should just be like, “Wow, is she awesome.” And then the Wikipedia entry will be about all the ways that she’s awesome and all the wonderful things that she’s done over the years and all of her amazing talents and that kind of thing.
Now, say that there’s another girl. Hmm…Julie Baskin, my fourth-grade girlfriend. And let’s say that Julie Baskin still holds a candle for me, which is perfectly possible because, let’s face it, I was a very charming fourth-grader. So, say that Julie Baskin goes in and edits the Wikipedia in my brain, and then when I go look up “the yeti,” it says “horrible monster who lives in the Himalayas, huge, hairy, terrifying!” Well, I don’t want to be married to a huge, hairy, terrifying, horrible monster, particularly not a possibly fictional one. So, all the sudden, I would stop loving Sarah, not because I don’t love her—of course I do!—but because Julie Baskin edited the Wikipedia in my mind.
So, it needs to be a Wikipedia that can only be edited by experts whom you trust. And that, of course, is the start of every dystopian novel, because then there’s the experts whom you trust, and they form the Revolutionary Council, and then all of the sudden you’re in Iran and they’re developing nuclear weapons. Hank, I’ll see you tomorrow.
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