Station 8 - Hand me my Shield, no not that, my Laptop

Station 8 - Hand me my Shield, no not that, my Laptop

The internet. It is like a lawless, Wild West town where around every corner you can find people duelling at each other with their mouse (sorry touchpad, get with the times man) revolvers and hurling abuse at each other about...well...nothing particularly important. An empty saloon is like a new forum or a newly posted YouTube video. A quaint place all bespoke and ready for all kinds of interaction and friendly banter. Relevant friendly banter. Well, so is hoped...

The people enter the saloon and suddenly a minor, tiny clash of opinion occurs. Someone doesn't like the way Johnny Hotspur is wearing his hat. This point is made, and suddenly chairs and tables are being flung everywhere and now all that happens in this saloon is just that. A violent tangent of differing opinions. 

I'll leave that metaphor alone now because I've been playing quite a lot of Red Dead Redemption recently and have grown quite fond of the Wild Wild West. 

So, you are watching the music video of arguably (in fact, voted in many a radio poll) the greatest song of all time by one of the greatest bands of all time. In my opinion, and a quite a lot of other people's opinions also. Now, how many times has this video been viewed as of today (24th July 2013)...

74, 497, 060

Not bad. 

Okay, so you are now watching "Baby" by Justin Bieber. Let's see how many views this scribing of poetic genius has...

874, 641, 411 

Oh. Well. You'd think that was a bit of a miscarriage of justice wouldn't you considering the inconceivably large gulf of quality behind the two songs. 

Well...no. 

Bohemian Rhapsody was released in 1975. In 1975 we didn't have YouTube to view this gargantuan epic of a music video. What we DID have however was the gem and now mince pie program Top of The Pops. This began to really push the popularity of songs and revolutionised  how music was experienced. 

Arise MTV. "Video Killed The Radio Star" being apparently the first video on here. MTV became a 24 hour music video channel. Now, imagine how many times 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was played and viewed. I don't know the exact number, I don't know if anyone does. Now what we must also remember is Bohemian Rhapsody's longevity compared to that Justin Bieber song. I highly doubt that in 20 odd years people will be hilariously belting it out and remembering it as one of the best of all time. 

What I'm basically trying to get at is, those people on YouTube who constantly go on and on about how "disgraceful" and "ignorant" it is that the viewing numbers for the two videos are so drastically different just need to close their laptop lids and think. Legend vs Immediacy. Which one wins? 

Moving on, a situation to consider. Gerald 30, a big Led Zeppelin and The Clash fan is walking down the street and he hears quite clearly the hallowed tones of 'One Direction' emanating from a mobile phone being clutched in the hands of 15 year old Sarah. What will Gerald do?

Probably...nothing. What he WILL do though is when he arrives home is to find a One Direction video on our favourite website and insult and swear and troll and flame their fans on there. 

Why? Why bother? I mean do you find THEIR fans doing the same thing to classic rock bands? Nope. They just happily sit in their rooms listening to them not harming anyone. So why is there this terrible trolling of these 1D fans? Because it's "COOL". It enforces your love of your band and gives you a heightened sense of "rock". You feel that if you openly (is it openly?) and quite harshly lambast their fans with your rock and roll testosterone you feel like you are doing your band a favour. Well, you're not are you? The time you spend criticizing their music you could easily spend praising your own. 

I wonder how many of Mr Bieber's YouTube views are SOLELY people just clicking on it to abuse it. 

The laptop and home computer has become a shield to fight your personal battles behind.  That much is clear. Poor old Gerald in the street doesn't have the guts to vent his views on poor old Sarah's "shit" music in Sarah's face. So he heads home and hides behind his keyboard and off he goes. 

I personally have no issue with Bieber or One Direction's fans. Let them be. Listen to the music you enjoy. Because I can tell you now, people who spend their time trolling and abusing the "Beliebers" are far sadder than the "Beliebers" themselves. 

Gerald, you are a 30 year old man with a taste in Rock and Punk music.Good for you. I like your music too. Now leave the teenage girls alone to admire their idol like they leave you alone to admire yours. 

Now, music was a very good example of this...but this hiding behind laptops is pretty much relevant to anything. I mean on a certain football forum I am a member of a "minor disagreement" very quickly escalates into a foul mouthed, personal battle in which even post-counts are used as "hitting where it hurts" jibes. This happens all over the internet. We only really ever see it happen in real life when it is over a girl or a drunken misunderstanding. To be honest, it's a good thing. It's hard to stab or punch someone over the internet isn't it?

So I guess venting anger at each other on the internet is somewhat pathetic and cowardly, but it probably reduces a fair amount of violent crime. Or does it? 

Who knows, but one thing is for sure, this won't end soon. Hide people!