Along Came a Spider

Necessity is the mother of invention. I'm sure they didn't have stalkers in mind when internet was created. But as the Information Revolution unfolds, stalkers may be the one benefited the most from it.

Hard to swallow? The most searched subject in the internet is sex, followed by celebrities. Celebrities are meant to be stalked after, they offered themselves to be stalked. We can just call them stalkees, they make money for being stalked.

I still remembered, back in school, when I spotted a cute gal, I'd check out which class she's in, and hang around her usual hangouts. After 20 years, I've changed much. I sat at my terminal, punched in a few words, and, the object of my curiosity appeared. On Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Friendster, mySpace, and more. Who needs a private investigator, when he's got the internet? ISP stands for 'Investigation in Secret Provider'.

The internet is good for business opportunities, information sharing, socialization, entertainment and more. The bottom line is, the internet is the answer of human's deepest desire to knowledge, to quench their insatiable curiosity. Some of the most successful internet companies thrive by acknowledging this trend.

Google, the most lucrative search engine of all, has the best spider to sniff out websites and organise them in the most stalker- friendly way. You- tube tells you which video you should stalk with their star- rating system and numbers of views. Facebook takes the cake with 'Tagging', the ultimate stalking feature not available on mySpace or Friendster until of late. Twitter and Plurk, both designed with stalkers specifically in mind, and how they have exploded.

I think many people want to be stalked, they long for other's attention, it makes them feel important, like celebrities. They think being stalked is a compliment, being 'Followed on Twitter' is a gauge of their popularity. Facebook has done good with the 'Hide' function, we could use less status update here.

Spoiler for the movie 'Gamer', don't read this if you want to watch the movie.

Some of them like to stalk, and some of them like to be stalked upon. It makes perfect sense that some of them are control freaks, and some of them are controlled freaks. The Nanex can controll people, thus controlling their votes, their purchasing habits, and whoever controls Nanex, will be God.

Today, people consult the internet on which is the best bargain of a digital camera, which movies have good ratings, which restaurants have goor dining reviews, who they should date. They even make some major decisions as to which house to buy, which career path to pursue, which country they should migrate to. There's nothing you couldn't consult over the net.

In future, people could be too lazy to make small every-day decisions, decisions like what to wear today, where to eat for lunch, where to park, etc. They let the internet make harmless little suggestions for them, while they focus on the 'more important things in life'. Soon people would be too depend on the internet, they lost thier own autonomy. Who ever controls internet (Larry Page and Sergey Brin, perhaps) controls people. No need for Nanex.

Oh, and the stalker. The stalker invented a social networking site, enable a portable video camera to hang around it's user, operates 24/7. Think 'The Truman Show', only this time, it's you and your friends and many more strangers, are on it. Good luck stalking.

And the spider lurks at one corner, looking at it's web, waiting for it's prey to come around (or update it's status). The spider attacks, or rather, just gawking at it's computer screen. Harmless, or not? Have you RSS this blog?