The Top Ten Reasons to Hate Web 2.0, in the Style of David Letterman

Like anything else, Web 2.0 can be used for good, instead of evil. But again, like anything else, its application is often tasteless and infuriating. Before I launch into the Top Ten Reasons to Hate Web 2.0, let’s define it through one of its most famous proponents, Wikipedia:

The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumer) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumer) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites, blogs, wikis, video-sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as much of an advocate of Web 2.0 as any other member of generations X/Y/Z. I just think it’s funnier to write about its pitfalls and less sensible applications. So, here goes:

Two of my friends deleted their Facebook accounts this past month because it was taking up too much of their time. Engaging in user-centred social networking was, for them, a pointless exercise in which they would scroll up and down the Facebook news feed, reading about nothing particularly interesting when they could be getting important tasks done instead.

As a Uni student, you’ll empathise with this, because you will have spent countless hours when you could have been studying stuck in a Wiki or YouTube loop when associated content is just-too-darned-good not to click on. I remember spending a couple of hours reading about the French Revolution on Wikipedia just because it had nothing to do with the literature essay I was writing. (Note: ‘addictiveness’ is at number ten because, well, you probably should have just studied.)

‘Memes’ are basically bits of information that spread throughout a culture and manage, for a little while at least, to get stuck in your head. Think, ‘Run, Forest, run!’

Memes have taken on a new meaning in the internet age, as cultural artefacts little better than the ‘Why Women Rule’ chain e-mails your aunt used to send you from her desk at Telstra’s call centre back in ’98. Often they’re not very funny and they’re certainly not clever (‘OMG Shoes’ might be the most annoying meme I’ve ever come across).

Sometimes internet memes are pretty great, though. Rickrolling (where you click on a link you think is relevant for you, but are instead linked to a video of Rick Astley’s 1987 hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’) was hilarious.

I’m not a big Twitter user, but I’ve been informed that this is bad Web-etiquette, especially when it comes to influential figures like politicians. Nobody cares what your PR manager thinks. If you won’t tweet for real, don’t tweet at all (did I just start a meme?)

According to Technorati, as of 2009 there were 133 million blogs, and counting. That’s a lot of primarily unedited information to be cast out into cyberspace. Unimpressive writing and content results in a lot of unfrequented blogs, but sometimes they become popular, as in the case of Stupid Nail Polish Names. It almost makes you lose faith in the blog readership.

Your boss reading your tweet/status update about how you ‘faked a sickie’, your friend noticing you blocked/deleted them or that you didn’t invite them to your party, etc. Actually, I take that back. These are kind of great.

Is the fact that internet giants like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Amazon can analyze my data and determine who I am as an individual through my web-browsing history convenient or just creepy? Sure, if I’ve been Googling inexpensive flooring all day and an advertisement comes up for Melbourne’s cheapest wood veneer supplier, I could be pleased that Google has saved me time. But what else are they doing with my data?

As Principal Skinner says, ‘The times, they are a-becoming quite different.’ I first remember encountering internet or SMS-speak—with all its LOLs, BRBs and FMLs—on the chat program mIRC when I was about twelve. I know language is primarily about communication, so its form shouldn’t make a difference, but I can’t help it. It bothered me then and it bothers me now.

Wikis are collaborative websites which allow the easy creation and editing of a number of interlinked pages. Wikipedia is the most famous of these, so much so that even University tutors have to warn their first years that Wikipedia is not a reference as its content is generated by users (and is therefore not peer-reviewed). The bad writing, which usually occurs in the more obscure entries, is generally more annoying than the inaccurate information, as in this entry on the Croatian soccer team NK Vinogradar.

Nevertheless, if anyone wants settle a bet on the mating rituals of dung beetles, they’re probably going to turn to Wikipedia instead of their old volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica. According to Time Magazine, though most of its articles are poorly written, Wikipedia ‘is as accurate a source for cancer information as a professionally reviewed resource’. Hmm.

I know, I’m guilty of this, too. But, come on! Photography used to be an art.

And the number one reason to hate Web 2.0 is …

Yes, I know it’s cold today. Oh, really, you wish you didn’t have to go to work? How nice that you have something in common with the 500 million other Facebook users writing about it right now.

I know I’m being cynical, but people should write about things that are interesting. I don’t want to read the randomly-generated ‘daily affirmations’ you didn’t write but post every ten minutes, and I certainly I don’t care if you need ‘Mountain-Fresh Air to summon the No Clean Fairy’ in some lame Facebook game. Srsly.

Images courtesy The Bloated Penguin, Chema on Flikr

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