The Motor of the Internet

        Bryan and Jase made some good posts this past week, and whether they knew it or not, made a connection that unearthed what might be one of the most prevelent forces of our time. Jase posted about the hacker group anonymous. For those of you who haven't been on the internet very long, this article should make a good enough introduction. Suffice it to say, they're basically the definition of a 'troll' - people who traverse the internet with the sole purpose of  getting a good laugh at others expense. However, they're not just your average bunch of troublesome nerds- despite being leaderless and disorganized, the 'group' has played a vital role in attacks on the Church of Scientology, the FBI, Sony, MasterCard, and even manifested quite a bit with the Occupy movement. They have something called the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), which is a DDOS network loosely constructed that lets them crash websites and networks around the world. So what do these 4chan troublemakers have to do with Betty White and sprezzatura? They use the same weapon. Not that Betty White has an ion cannon in her basement, but Anonymous' greatest weapon isn't its computers - it's what they give as their motivation for all their attacks; they do everything 'for the LOLZ".

     As ridiculous as it is to type that acronym in a serious sentence, it's the same concept as sprezzatura, sarcasm, or any other humor used to mask and defend one's self. Anonymous has no defined leadership, and no means of enforcing any leadership claims that are made. In the 'official' decleration of war, it says "... for the good of mankind, and for our own enjoyment, we shall proceed to expel you from the internet and dismantle the church of Scientology in its present form." Thus we see, rather than a leader or set of ideals, the driving force behind Anonymous, behind a group that cost hundreds of organizations millions of dollars, is laughs.

       While this may seem like a new thing to some, making a mockery of held beliefs and societal standards just for laughs, as well as rejection of order and reason are not new ideas. In the later half of the 20th century, new philosophies of arose from the Dada movement to Existentialism. Authors like Ayn Rand, Sarte, and others rejected everything that pointed to world with any meaning or purpose and instead, embraced a godless world with moral relativism (Atlas Shrugged, anyone?). Faced with this, as Sisyphus is faced with his boulder in Camus' example, one needed to make one's own pleasure from the struggle of life. Perhaps Anonymous is merely the next phase of existentialism? And not just Anonymous, but everyone that ever became famous (or infamous) on the internet - for the most part, the sole reason for their success (or failure) was because people found it funny. Given the lack of strict control on the internet, there is sometimes a wild-wild-west feel to it. So like the existentialists, and like Anonymous, when order is gone, we rely on humor, or whatever our basest appeal is at the moment. The leading force behind the internet is not the government, the media, or even facebook. It's the zeitgeist that drives millions of people around the world to attack or defend whatever is popular or funny en masse. There were quite a few posts for and against SOPA that show just how the zeitgeist works. Did most people actually care about DNS regulation and piracy? No, but it was 'cool', so they emailed their senators. We all recognized that the internet could be a tool for something great, like SETI or wikipedia, but we also recognize that it's main use isn't those things - its for looking at pictures of cats with funny captions. That is, until someone decides that it would be funnier to take that picture and replace your profile picture on facebook with it...

       So next time you get frustrated for someone hacking your MySpace or Twitter, remember that's it's nothing personal, because the real people to blame are the post-modernists from the 1950s. The internet is just a reflection of what really drives and interests us, and the they're are just doing it for kicks and giggles. Why so serious?