Forbes Magazine recently described the aforementioned YouTube as the world's largest TV station (it's also been characterized as "the world's largest magazine rack," and even "the world's largest focus group.") Make no mistake, the aggregate quality of content on YouTube might exceed that of all the world's media conglomerations combined (in this context, *quality* refers to both entertainment and information). The FCC, corporate chairmen, and self-serving advertisers have no influence on 'YouTubers', so artists and advocates of every flavor are relatively free to express themselves - and freedom has always been the greatest catalyst of creativity. That's the considerable upside; the downside is the same as in every other medium -- the most inane, grotesque, inhuman spectacles always seem to attract the most attention.

YouTube word searches yield some interesting results. A search of the words - fire fart - (unquoted) yield just under 4,000 hits. The first result has been viewed over 3,000,000 times. The video's description reads, "Did u know that one person's energy contained in farts for a period of 6 years and 9 months can be comparable to an atomic bomb??" (Now that's a question Mr. Wizard is most unlikely to have ever answered.) Videos related to this one include 'Jurassic Fart,' (3.6 million views), 'MythBusters - Do Pretty Girls Fart' (4.5 million views), 'Farting Idol' (2.1 million views), 'Beth's Gigantic Fart' (1.5 million views), and 'The biggest fart ever' (over 1 million views.) Perhaps this clarifies why extremely popular Internet items are described as "viral" -- the sickness is passed from one computer to another until finally most everyone is infected and dying.

If cognition weeps over YouTube's most popular videos, it runs screaming "Jesus Christ, hallelujah" over the YouTube comment sections. At a ratio optimistically figured at 7,897 to 1, the illiterate, debased, feverishly grotesque remarks outnumber the intelligent, reasonable, and constructive ones. Even by the low standards of any unmoderated forum, logic and decency in YouTube comments are conspicuously absent. Of course, it's not entirely coincidental that all comments are restricted to a mere 450 characters, restricting most "conversations" to brute shouting matches. Nevertheless, the opinions and assertions of countless YouTube posters are consistently disturbing. Viciously racist, sexist, nationalistic, xenophobic, bullying, profane, perverted, upside down backward comments are the rule, not the exception. Indeed, it is not at all surprising that comments for Martin Luther King, Jr.s' "I Have a Dream" speech (over 4 million views) are presently disabled -- surely, the only other option for the video's owner was to allow the contamination of the page by virulent, sadistic, inhuman graffiti. It's also telling that many videos that lean toward profundity -- say, a speech by Gandhi with over 30,000 views -- have virtually no comments, while prank phone calls, celebrity sex videos, and professional wrestling matches receive new comments (or rather, attempted comments by people who never learned to read or write) roughly every 1.5 seconds.

This leads me to ask the question: exactly when and how was the Internet completely overrun by random "comments"? One is hard pressed to find a blog or purported "news service" that doesn't feature comment sections accompanying every essay, news article, video, and blog entry. Granted, on a few occasions, the intellectual content of the user comments may actually exceed that of the item they're responding to. But really, do all these pinched, short, unscreened, generally ill-formed and horrendously written "comments" enhance or diminish the power of the presentations? Imagine if history's greatest authors had been forced to include random reader comments in all of their books. On the inside jacket of Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms," we might read: KevinOwnsUFuck98 writes: "Dude, u r fat & old. Wash your krotch b4 u spred your legs."

We also see demonstrated the steady injection into the collective lexicon of so-called "leet-speaking" -- a form of quasi-shorthand via the worlds of 'gaming,' text messaging, and Internet chat rooms. Most of us who regularly communicate electronically (in other words, the large majority of the industrialized world) have at least a vague familiarity with this so-called 'jargon.' Some examples include LOL (laughing out loud), btw (by the way), j/k (just kidding), stfu (shut the f*** up), and WAY too many others to even partially list here. The question of whether this rather cryptic code actually stunts learning and language skills is controversial. But some language purists (i.e., generally people who either learned to read and write before the public schools had been hopelessly dumbed down, or through private schooling, or independent study) view "leet-speaking" as yet another in an endless series of devastating blows to English grammar. You knew it was only a matter of time, and it's finally begun to happen: some youngsters who've spent their whole lives jacked into electronic communications now utilize "leet-speaking" in their oral conversations. Have you recently heard a kid say "lol" or "lulz" as an expression of amusement, and wondered what the hell he was talking about? Well, now you know.

Now imagine the endless nightmare faced by moderators of Internet forums. Since everyone feels entitled to post public comments (no matter how inane, abusive, profane, or incoherent), and since any "filtering" of comments leads to accusations of *censorship,* how can one operate a forum while maintaining a minimum of decency and decorum? The answer is, regrettably few do, and most if not all are overrun by extended bouts of controversy and bedlam. This illustrates two things:

1) Internet communications must be handled more delicately than one-on-one human relations. The obvious reason for this is, when two people argue over a computer, the usual human elements of empathy and politeness go completely out the window. For one thing, you don't see your *antagonist* -- the look in his eyes, that sense of another human -- nor can you know the full intent behind his every remark. Indeed, many corporations now guide their employees through comprehensive training on email and forum etiquette, advising them to always wait and reflect on their writings before hitting the irretrievable "send" or "post" command.

2) In the United States (and throughout much of the Western world, and beyond), education, literacy, and social decorum seem to be heading in the wrong direction. Tragically, the electronic age only seems to have worsened our social malaise. The irony is, we "communicate" with one another more easily today than ever before. But for reasons stated above, these "communications" tend to lack real human connectedness. Consider that more Americans than ever utilize email, cell phones, text messaging, etc., to keep in touch with friends and family, yet increasingly we are isolated and lonely. One fairly recent news story illustrating this point reads: "...an authoritative study in the American Sociological Review found that the average American had only two close friends in whom they would confide on important matters, down from an average of three in 1985. The number of people who said they had no such confidant soared from 10 percent in 1985 to nearly 25 percent in 2004; an additional 19 percent said they had only one confidant - often their spouse." (From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14126192/)

The purpose of this essay is not to scapegoat the Internet for our culture's decline. Rather, this preexisting spiral has continued unabated, despite our improved abilities to dispense and consume unfettered information, and to "communicate" with one another anywhere in the world. As I stated at the outset, the WWW is a reflection of human consciousness, for better and worse. And collectively, our consciousness is not in the brightest place right now. All statistics and rhetoric lamenting the failures of our educational system aside, simply look out your window at the street, at all those heavy-set frowning folks with their Ipods and cellphones. These bloated disconnected atoms in an icy-cold vacuum. And ask yourself just how in the hell "people like that" -- i.e. people like you, people like ME -- might ever hope to communicate with one another. On the Internet, over the phone, or screaming through our car windows with our pedals to the floor at 90 MPH.

POSTSCRIPT: The first version of this essay featured a few comments that may have been overwrought. In one instance, I stated, "Human education and literacy has reached its darkest depths in contemporary history." At best, this remark may have confused the reader, since "contemporary history" is a deliberately vague term. Also, in recent decades, many impoverished nations have experienced marked improvements in education and literacy, so to speak too broadly of a "human" decline in these areas may not be accurate. I hope this piece is mostly reasonable, and might stir some meaningful discourse out here in cyberspace.