It is here. If anyone needed conclusive evidence of the downfall of elemental culture - AKA literacy - and the internet's deleterious contribution to it, it is neatly encapsulated in this little "bubble" that pops up in the popular pop oracle called Yahoo Answers.
Hmm...it looks like you have a lot of punctuation.
If it were a joke, it would have been a delightful one.
It reminded me of a scene in Forman's film Amadeus. If you've seen the film, you'll know which scene I mean.
Alas, it is no joke.
And unlike Forman's emperor, this naked emperor has no mouth, or even a mind of its own, to reply to the only pertinent, logical question: "And which punctuation marks did you have in mind, Your Majesty?"
Then again, there are also precious few "Mozarts" around to ask the question.
I dislike the word "despise" as I dislike the sentiment itself; I dislike it with a passion. All right, I hate it.
But there really is no other word that would describe my sentiments towards Yahoo Answers quite as accurately as despise.
Once in a blue moon - perhaps once a year or once every two years - a question happens to catch my eye, that I feel I could answer in a way that the asker might profit from it.
Which is why I only found this pop-up in question now.
Apparently it has been around - or at least bugging people - since the summer of 2008, at least.
And yet, three years later it is still here, unabashed.
What does that tell you?
It tells me why the name "Yahoo" is uncannily befitting.
It also tells me what its consumers are being reared and encouraged to be.
Yahoos, rednecks, yokels, hillbillies who are liberally throwing away the intellectual and personal liberty, the freedom so hard-won by generations before them, in exchange for convenient, cozy servitude to money- and power-hungry pimp-bots.
It also tells me that in this WWWorld there aren't enough people who care enough to revolt against the onslaught of mental vulgarity, sloth and debasement, to make it go away. Because if there were, it would have gone away by now. Virtual visitors mean cash; angry virtual visitors mean that much less cash.
And punctuation, while we're at it, means fine articulation of thought.
But only thought that is articulated needs it. And given enough time, many people who still try accurately to express the meanders of their thought might cave in under the weight of inertia and start to feel that punctuation is, after all, redundant. A luxury. Something that few have and few care to understand, let alone appreciate, anymore.
Then, the arcane law of reciprocity will kick in, and eventually their thought will not need punctuation anymore. They will have become intellectual and emotional flatliners. Lobotomised Cro-Magnon creatures, (un)dressed in designer clothes, with cell phones instead of ears and the internet instead of their own brain.
People who need oracles.
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