Donate
(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
Loading ...
The Internet Intellectual
I have been meaning to write about this particular rant of mine but always put it off since was not too sure how it will be accepted. Since then have seen far too many of this kind and felt should write about this to find out how you all feel.
To put this article into perspective, let’s just move back in time, like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers (I) and bring some background to this. About 15 years back, there was a world that we all lived in. This world had lesser pollution, lesser traffic, better people with more civility, fresher air yada yada and most importantly there was no internet available to the common populace. Lest some of the readers start to think that am against the internet let me set the record straight by telling that love the internet for what it can do and feel sad due to the bad ways it has been abused over time. To get back to that glorious period in time, there was no internet and you had to learn things the hard way. That meant you would actually have to read a newspaper to get the latest news, a book from start to finish to get the whole story, a Video Cassette had to be put in the video player to see the movie (again start to finish). Knowledge acquisition was a time consuming but highly enjoyable process. There was a joy in each of these exploratory journeys. You had to read through each of those papers and feel it to change the page to go along in the book. You had to travel by Bus or Train to the local theater, wait in a queue for a ticket and then watch the movie. There was a joy in waiting, the rush you would get when you went nearer to the ticket kiosk. You were the chosen one for those several seconds or minutes as you bought your ticket. If you were not the lucky one, there was always a hidden joy in finding a black ticket guy, go with him into a kopche gully and then get that elusive ticket. The joy of waiting and getting a ticket to a wonderful source of entertainment. I am sure you are getting my drift.
Now, into this rather amicable phase of life, entered a Godzilla of information, the Internet. Setup by a bunch of geeks with a wonderful utopian idea of the future, the internet was to be an information super highway where you could get whatever you wanted. We were closer to Sir. Arthur C Clarke’s “2001”. We all heralded a new future and were wooed by the wow factor of the net. A spew of movies were released by the wonderful people in Hollywood to build the proverbial scare in all of us about the future and what if the machine could conquer us. Some were nice and enjoyable, some were real trash. We still had to go to the nearest theater to look it up. There was no website where you could download these movies or book tickets, yet.
As the internet progressed, so did many things along with it and this article is about one particularly offensive character called the “Internet Intellectual”. This is a dangerous species and highly prone to camouflaging in the latest guise and can attack you at anytime in a party, over mail, at a pub or even at your own home. It’s highly toxic as it does not have complete information and can tend to fester quite quickly like an open wound. The irritation in me is quite evident in my earlier lines. To explain what the “Internet Intellectual” is, I will first need to list down what it is and how it originated.
With the vast amounts of part information available on the internet, you really did not have to do any of those wonderfully leisure thing you did years back. All you had to do was log on to the net and some wonderful guy would be waiting to provide you with some half knowledge. This was the origination of the “Internet Intellectual”. Guys who till then were plain dumb and boring suddenly became all knowledgeable thanks to the internet. They could way lyrical on any subject under the sun provided it was on the net, readily available for them. There was no book, movie, music that was far away from this breed. Just click on a few keys and et voila, you had some half baked information about that subject. This soon turned into a virus which attacked almost everyone. I saw countless friends and family succumb to this disease quite early on in their age. One of my closest friends is a guy who succumbed to this disease quite early on in his quest for knowledge and there has been no looking back after that for him. He has gone on to become the god of “Internet Intellectual(s)”. These gits, who had no passions suddenly, were full of knowledge. I might be sounding like a snob B@st@r$ but am not. I am more talking about the wonderful experience of going thorough something to gain knowledge. It can be an actual travel to a place, reading of a book or watching a play/movie. All this was now forfeited for the internet. The new breed knew everything there was to know. A new movie is released, heck, why should I go pay the ticket and watch it like a schmuck, I will instead download reviews, go to Wikipedia (My God & Devil at the same time) learn about it and wax lyrical. I am a cool guy. Why should I be that average Joe
A new book by a wonderful author, well well, that should not be bought, let me just download it off that beast called the internet, scrub through (scan it so quickly you hardly read a sentence in every page) it in 15 minutes and I know the story.
This was the new thought process. The new intellectual knew-it-all and did not spend time on any topic completely. Like a butterfly, he skipped from flower to flower never taking its essence but just placing a milestone that “I have been there”.
This has become my biggest grouse for the past few years now. It used to be so wonderful to find a like minded person in a book fair, theater or a coffee shop and you could spend hours talking about that particular author or movie to the other person and a bond would be formed. Now you just do not know if this person you met is part of that offensive breed or really a person who has savored every flower that he smelt on the journey of life. If every passion activity like watching movies, reading books does not have its own journey, in my sense it’s not an activity at all and only something you have done to look better like wear goggles or make-up.
I know there are a lot of people out there who will find this article rather snooty and think that there are more ways to acquire knowledge and if there is a faster path of knowledge using the internet then what could be the harm? Well my point here is that the knowledge you are gaining albeit quicker is somebody else’s personal journey and He/She could be having a completely different perspective of life. The other problem with this quicker journey is that you will never be able to appreciate the finer nuances of the book/movie/place with this and you will only smell a plastic flower.
To all those who agree even if half-heartedly to this diatribe of mine, then we need to rally around and start a movement. We will need to get cracking on these “Internet Intellectual” and get them to understand the process of gaining knowledge is just like the process of every good thing on this world. A finely brewed cuppa filter coffee takes time but is always superior to instant coffee. The same applies to Whiskey and all those wonderful things we love. To gain we need to spend and please do spend that time and money to gain a personal outlook at anything you need to rather than just piling on somebody’s opinion on the internet. The opinion could be good but many a times can be short of an urban legend also.
Chew on this and let me know what you all feel about it
Cheers,
Deepak
25 Responses to “The Internet Intellectual”
Leave a Reply
Our Comments Policy : The following kinds of comments are troll capped, blocked and/or commenter's identity reported publicly: Verbal abuse, personal attacks, hate statements, spam, trolls, advertising. Please assist us in keeping the comments clean. Use the contact form to let us know if you find unwarranted comments on PFC. Thank you.
- Contract : An interview with GGV
- Joker! & Shortage of actors in India..
- Towards a more credible Indian Cinema
- How I discovered Woodey Allen
- Contract: A Must Watch…
- Joker! & Shortage of actors in In
- Contract: A Must Watch&#x
- Towards a more credible Indian C
- How I discovered Woodey
- Copy times X = Res
Recent Posts:
Hottest Today:
interesting thoughts!!!!
so you feel that the journey is more important than the destination??? (sorry for the cliche cudnt resist)… anyways i think info hunting on the net is very enjoyable… its one of my favorite pastimes… does that info equate to knowledge? i dont know… but reading a book in print IS far more enjoyable than an ebook!!!!
Exactly papai.
Knowledge and information are two separate terms. Depends on how one differentiate it.
I never tried reading an e-book but will always prefer checking train availability online rather than waiting for 2 hours in stinking railway station.
I agree with the rest of the current breed thing
You’re absolutely right, Deepak. Embarrassment of what-is-perceived-to-be-riches. As attention spans go down and the ability to enjoy quality of life recedes, a lot of things are under threat. The mobile phone is probably an even worse offender in many ways.
[...] PassionForCinema wrote an interesting post today on The Internet IntellectualHere’s a quick excerpt I have been meaning to write about this particular rant of mine but always put it off since was not too sure how it will be accepted. Since then have seen far too many of this kind and felt should write about this to find out how you all feel. To put this article into perspective, let
@DPac,
Brother,
[Information may have good infiltration rate at present but KNOWLEDGE is still and will always be prerogative of few only who get it through hard work and its their own and not borrowed. ]
Nice post.
Agree.
Though I don’t think pseudointellectuals did not exist before the internet. I had a friend who would base his opinions only after reading the reviews in the papers. It was easy to call his bluff then. After getting on the internet, he began to source his information from more discreet sources…
There is a also a very dangerous breed of “internet intellectuals” that you have left out. These are the people who will bomb you with reviews, blogs, discussions that favor their POV. After all their film has good ratings on IMDB, RT, MC. When everybody seems to like it, how can *this* guy not like it, eh? Chalo, maaro saale ko.
@RK bhai…
yeh deepak woh DPac nahiin hai bhai :-)
Are Bhai you people are going to be more serious case than the case of Anurag Basu and Anurag Kashyap. They create confusion for intiators but between you guys its a big confusion.
—-
Sorry Deepak. Now comment 4 is directed to you only.:)
Very few ppl are commenting these days ….i guess we need a super post from Anurag …:)
@Deepak,
i am assuming you this rant is for those bigots out there.
but to set things straight, u have the same bigots before the internet age as well (mebe lesser in numbers) and beg to disagree that the ‘internet journey’ is always hackneyed. it sure MAY turn out to be so…but could be the other way too..
Deepak
Everyone has a choice. No one is forced to do anything.
where do u live?
You can always choose to take the bus or car to the close by town to watch a film instead of taking your car to the nearest multiplex.
If you want we can create a TRUMAN SHOW type of world for you. We will have actors pretending to be Black marketeers outside theaters & they will sell you tickets.
I don’t agree with you on anything here. People who like to gain knowledge will still seek it. People who are using internet to gain knowledge would not have done anything in your Golden Age of Bus & Black Tickets.
Sometimes small bits of information leads to bigger things in life. Don’t make judgements like that about others.
Do you have beard? Do you wear glasses? Do you see yourself as an intellectual?
What books did you read in January?
What music did you discover last month?
@ papai,
I surf the internet for a lot of time and right now am still on the net as I am writing :-) As I mentioned I am not averse to the net and I also use it for checking train timings, airplane bookings and whatnot but my article was more towards the enjoyment of a passsion rather than instant knowledge gain.
@ RK,
My name is Deepak and well you can call me DPac and I shall holler hello to that also. No issues with that Mate.
@ Mainak
You have gotten the wrong end of the stick my friend in this article. This is not about the days gone by nor is it about a way of living. Sadly you seem to have understood it that way. This article was more towards the process of enjoying a journey versus instant gratification. I have tried to opine in the article that there is joy to be had in the actual process and that was all the premise. It would be good if you read the piece once again before going all agro on me :-).
I have no fight with the way people seek information but just felt that knowledge is something to be gotten after a journey and that journey itself is quite interesting.
@Deepak
Had it been only about “process of enjoying a journey versus instant gratification” as you say above, I would have agreed with you.
But the problem is that you bring in the words ‘knowledge’ and ‘intelligence’.
‘Knowledge’ cannot have a fixed meaning. It evolves with time.
A weaver or a kumhaar can question that how can you call reading a book thoroughly and gaining something out of what someone else has written as knowledge? According to him/her knowledge has to be coupled with creativity and usefulness.
Perhaps having the information in bits, has become commercially useful today.
That brings us to Clerk’s (comment 2) question of whether knowledge and information are different things in today’s world. I don’t know the answer but I know that we are not the ones who decide that.
Most of the times I work on a crew I face a certain amount of hostility from the old timers who have come up the ranks old style due to the fact that I am a film school graduate. Bear in mind I throw no attitude and am actually very eager to learn from these chaps.
Their rationale is that what they learnt over decades the hard way, I learnt in a much shorter period of time albeit in a compressed manner. I will never have as much knowledge as an electric who can probably repair an HMI ballast by himself but I maintain I don’t feel I need to master each and every aspect of film technology.
I on the other hand can probably whip their ass in some aspects which they have no interest whatsoever in learning about like pushing the envelope in HD imaging.
Don’t you think it’s the individuals pejorative to decide how detailed his knowledge for a particular subject goes to ? This is an era of super-specialization and the Jack of all Trades are going to be extinct pretty soon.
Yes the journey is important but the length should be determined by the traveler. You can also be rest assured that poseurs are caught out sooner than later.
Btw my Dad loves Single Malt while I am a wheat beer drinker. :d
@Neeraja
I don’t know if you are familiar with fractals but the theory of self similarity states that the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts. I’m fascinated by the occurrence of fractals in the natural world as well as art.
The implication being that in some cases it is redundant to study the whole picture when a partial examination will suffice. Care to comment from a mathematical viewpoint ?
Deepak, the internet offers to us a choice of’pick and choose’. We may read a book or view a movie in its entirety or we may read reviews of the same and declare “I,ve seen it/read it”.
With the enormous amount of information available on the net,we are forced to skip some info while retaining what we like,or proabaly what we believe in or would want others to believe.
I did attempt to draw attention to something like this happening in the near future in a recent post of mine ( audi-hop :))
Yes, a little knowledge is dangerous.What is more dangerous is that in the future the struggle for control of the internet will lead to a lot of misinformation being branded around as the truth.
nice article Deepak, … i dont agree with 80 % of what u wrote but still njoyed reading .. and the journey was good ;).. wish i cud take a bus .. to the local station get a newspaper and then read ur blog … it wud have been even more enjoyable !!
cheers mate
keep posting !!!
(P S : The internet intellectual’s use of language “Just click on a few keys and et voila” )
i agree with the article…..as simple as that.
@ Deepak ! … old school guy saying Cheers ! here ! :) I know exactly what u are talking about ! … Lotta Internet Intellectuals on this site too ! :) Dont you hear the grunts ? :)
@Deepak
“These gits, who had no passions suddenly, were full of knowledge. I might be sounding like a snob B@st@r$ but am not. I am more talking about the wonderful experience of going thorough something to gain knowledge. It can be an actual travel to a place, reading of a book or watching a play/movie.”
At a point of time in Indian history the “vadiyars/Pandits” use to recite any/all knowledge to pass it on…i wonder if they started grumbling once books came into being
nice article though.thanks
@Mithun
Do not know much about fractals. Very disconnected from my area.
Did a project on fractals in class X once(We were sitting with a cabbage on the table, blabbering something that nobody understood!) and read a few popular science type of articles here and there.
There is a whole subject that goes by the name of ‘Fractal Geometry’ which is supposed to provide easier and better understanding of geometry of nature than achieved through other geometries.
Also most natural processes are best described mathematically by dynamical systems which give rise to intricate shapes and behaviour like fractals.
Anyway, given that the bigger picture looks exactly same as the its small parts, mathematically, it is always sufficient to study the thing locally.
“The implication being that in some cases it is redundant to study the whole picture when a partial examination will suffice.”
as I said, totally agree.
but I didn’t understand if this is just a statement you want to make or is it pointed at my comment above? If it’s the latter I do not understand what you are trying to say. Please elaborate.
Fractal geometry…internet intellectuals…Aloo ke Paranthe. Seriously guys, write something that i can understand…(I love Ben Stiller movies..so you can understand that fractal geometry is really not what I look for when Iam on PFC)
it requires a bit of smartness to be an ‘internet intellectual’. a lalu cannot be an ‘internet intellectual’. ‘internet intellectual’ is more like being street smart. and i think, i am a bit of ‘internet intellectual’… in fact we all are.. you will always google when you do not know something..
Good article and I agree with it wholeheartedly. But what Arun Prakash wrote in his last paragraph is of prime concern to me too.
kcp
u belong to the old school like me :) (even tho im not old)
every technological innovatiion adds something tangible to life and takes away many intangible aspects of it .