"The Forum" by: The Suburban Hick (D'Arcy)
The following two "pages" differ from the rest of the text in various ways, as you will obviously notice, for it is not in typical essay form (whatever "typical" is on the web, as it is). In fact, I've structured the whole mess as a sort of Dialogue between four characters to fully express the varying opinions and suggestions that may arise from "typical" essay ideas, counter them, and move on.
Doomsayer, the Purist: Is very much against the New Age of Computer Writing.
Technocrat: Addicted to change, technology. Rolls with the punches very easily.
Unknown: An Undecided witness. Wish-washy.
Suburban Hick: Me. The Ego, the balancer.
Setting: Office sounds of the click of shifting pencils, rustling papers, a cough or two. There is a table in the middle of the room with five chairs surrounding it.
Four people enter the room. The first, eager and excited, is Technocrat. He is hastily dressed, with a shirt-tail untucked. A cel-phone hangs from a holster on his belt, a pager has been stuffed into his flabby pockets, although the phone possesses email, pager, and voice-mail properties. On his heels is the reluctant Doomsayer, casual-formally dressed, a pen in his breast pocket and an exasperated look on his face. Then casually enters the Suburban Hick, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, all blue and sedate, glasses perched on her nose. Lingering last is the uncertain Unknown, dressed similar to Hick, but without the glasses.
Suburban Hick (with a smile for all): Greetings, all. We have gathered to discuss the aspects of our growing technological world. Some of us view the change as bad, to say it lightly, and others view the changes as benificial. To limit our discussion, we'll focus on the New Age of Writing that has advanced upon us via the Web and the Internet. Is it a new genre, or a destructive entity out to kill us all?
Doomsayer (interrupting): I don't know why we're even having this discussion, Hick. The web is, basically, a location on a complicated machine that easily feeds the world pornography with the simple use of "point and click," excess garbage on the president and all his affairs of non-state--
Technocrat: --nothing you can't get from the common newspaper stand--
Doom: --a mess of sites on every subject imaginable--
Techno: --Careful, you'll start to repeat yourself soon. Let me take a whack here, if you will. The Web is a service of the computer, both personal and commercial, that in turn isserviced byother consumers and businesses, with adverstising and options. It is a connection of servers, which provide information and gateways for other sources of information. Also--
Hick: Good enough, 'Crat. Save the wind for other speeches, please, for now. The Web is a strange place where anything can happen. Dozens--no, millions, perhaps--of people access it every day. there are so many sties out there where people can meet others of like personalities and interests, as well as sell anything from toothpaste and socks to posters and novellas to things that, ah, well, many people consider indecent.
Doom: That is MY concern. Those sellings! So many indecent topics that cater to every sick whim and fancy. Do you know what some of those sites are like? Filth and muck of all sorts. Ordinary people stretched across a computer screen, their "laundry" displayed like today's fresh catch. There are misleading links to those sites, too, that bother me greatly!!!
Unknown: Misleading links? What do you mean?
Techno: He's talking about sites like the Whitehouse page. You put in the wrong address into the hypertext search engine, and you'll get porno instead of Clinton.
Hick (low voiced): Which seems to be the same right now anyway, if the government gets its way...
Doom: That is my problem! Anything can be published nowadays on the Web. Porno pages galore, defamatory essays. Bigotry, hate mail, prejudice, etc.! Anyone can post on their homepage a racial note, and no on can do anything about it!! There are no laws.
Techno: Damn right! It's like putting one law that will apply to every continent on this planet. But, not every site is bad. Not EVERYONE is interested in porno. Not everyone is out to throw hate into your teeth. Besides, those sites are easily filtered out, dismissed. It's like buying a paper magazine. If you don't want it, don't buy it. The Web is a large place, after all.
Unknown: Large? How large? As big as Utah? As big as that new mall they opened on I-75???
Techno: There are infinite choices on the web, created by the millions of different personalities that use it. You can find sites on anything from Eliot to Austen to Poe, conflicting essays on the government, to even the weather. Infinite amounts of information are ready to be accessed out there, all for us!
Hick: Anything we want, eh? So, anything can be published, you're saying?
Techno: Yes! Why deal with an old fogey of a paper publisher, when you can easily go to Geocities or any of the other Webpage providers, and put your essays, poems, pictures, all there, for basically no trouble at all!! Anyone can write now; anyone can publish. You don't have to wait six-plus months to get a reply, either!
Hick: Yes, anyone can write. But is everyone talented at writing? Is everything or anything actually MEANT to be published? As Doomsayer was saying, some pretty tasteless stuff can be put on the Web. A budding photographer can easily go lewd in style, all in the name of "art," when actually he's in it for the, ah, more interesting aspects.
Doom (nodding in agreement): Anyone can write, as Hick and 'Crat were saying. But is everyone meant to publish? Those "old fogeys" you mentioned, 'Crat, are highly competent editors who have been practicing their craft for longer than any dumb 21-year-old budding artist want-to-be--
Hick: Hey!
Doom: --claims she or he is. Sure, the possibilities are endless. There are thousands of topics that can be explored or exploited on the Web, in the world. But some people express themselves so...tastelessly. And I do mean that! Some people just don't have the talent to write, and end up spewing out disgusting or bland or even stupid pages no worth the paper they're not printed on.
Unknown: I hear the web saves on paper, hence on rainforests, the ozone layer, thousands of species--
Hick: You're interrupting, Unknown. That's not important right now.
Techno: Actually, it is. It DOES save on paper, Hick.
Hick sighs exhasperatedly.
Techno: Continue, Doomsayer.
Doom: Thanks. The editors have spend years at their craft, have set rules--no, not rules--suggestions, to what is good and appropriate. That sounds bad and elitist, but they DO know what is decent. They have the ability to filter out the not-so-talented with the able.
Techno: That is true, but they cannot even publish every good talented writer, either. So many writers wait and wait, and their voices are also important to hear. Time and space are limited on paper, but not so on the computer. To those writers, letters are sent back--
Hick: I know that personally!! Getting a "good" rating from the poetry publishing magazine WordWrights made me feel better about my writing, but they still didn't publish it. They even mentioned in their letter that they cannot publish even those that they consider great, because of the lack of space.
Techno: Exactly. Many people get discouraged. But, with the web, those talented writers can get the attention due to them.
Unknown: Along with thousands of other semi-talented writers. What about, however, those who do not have access?
Hick: THAT is not an issue we'll discuss today. When we return, we'll discuss the issue of computer realibility in Act II, as well as continue this debate.
or choose from these:
Established: Dec. 15, 1998; Last updated: Dec. 16, 1998