The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 207

Jim McClellan on what's really wrong with the Internet RECENTLY I GOT a call from a friend who works on a women's magazine. She was about to start work on their Christmas New Year 1995 issue and had to compile a kind of 'fab 5 o' of hot, new, upcoming things. She The Net is full of fools and there are ways to avoid them for instance, a 'bozo filter' which simply edits someone out of your, on-line life. I have resisted using one of these. It's because they're elitist, I tell myself, but if I'm honest the real reason is that I'm becoming fascinated by on-line idiocy is this a problem? Well, the Net is supposed to be an active alternative to passive TV-watching.

But I can't help thinking that my interest in. catching up on the latest transcendentally stupid thing Chuck from Idaho has come up with is the Internet equivalent of sniggering at trash TV like Prisoner Cell Block H. I always thought the Net might be a place to get away from camp irony. But it seems as though I can't help taking it on-line with me. wanted me to supply her with a few techno ideas.

'But no Internet she added. 'All that's really boring She isn't on her own. There have been a spate of Internet backlash stories floating through the media in recent weeks. The American satirical magazine Spy regularly takes the mickey out of cyber-bores. Numerous style counsellors have dropped into Cyberia, London's first Internet Cafe, and decided that the place is desperately unhappening (I wonder whether they might not have a point).

During the pre- conference silly season, several newspaper columnists (the kind who normally spend their time pondering political significance of Tony Blair's trousers) were let loose on the Net and decided that it was I like the theory that the Net can give people the space to be creative as much as the next person, but the reality is conferences clogged up with reams of cyber-poetry with lines like: Information in formation' Bulletin board example, looks worryingly like an Argos catalogue for cyberspace. Perhaps an element of anti-Internet feeling would be useful. The Net is changing our lives and an attempt to think about some of the things that are wrong with on-line culture might help us understand this process and where it could go. After all, at the moment, most discussion remains backward-looking; we still think of the Net in nostalgic terms -as a quicker mail system, an open-all-hours library or a way of reconstructing old-style 'village community'. In that spirit, here's a few things I think are wrong with the Internet.

1) It is still too dominated by young, white, middle-class males an irritating fact of life on-line made worse by people going on about the Net as this Utopian space where differences of gender, race and class melt into insignificance. Yeah, right A while back on the Usenet Newsgroup run by Wired magazine a man posted a request for Afro-American writers who could contribute to a black-oriented cyberzine. Immediately several people posted moaning replies saying, in effect, what's all this stuff about an Afro-American cyberzine, you people make me sick, don't you know race doesn't matter on-line. I rest my case. 2) The Internet is too specialised.

If it is to become a public space then different people, different social groups, should meet and mix. As it is, not everyone can get on-line and those who do (from Bart Simpson fans to Buddhists) stay in their own little patch. If you try to mix things up by cross-posting (ie, introducing material from one conference into another) people start flaming you. 3) Netiquette. I know civil societies need codes of behaviour but it strikes me that the various rules of Netiquette (how to write your contributions, etc) have become tools to enforce hierarchies: ways for old-timers to have a go at newcomers without paying attention to what they're actually saying.

4) Stupid discussions about what you have to do and what clothes you have to wear to be a -'real cyberpunk'. I know the bulk of Net-heads are adolescents but it's still hard to believe how much bandwidth is wasted on this kind of thing. 5) On-line poets. I like the theory that the Net can give people the space to be creative as much as the next person, but the reality is finding conferences clogged up with reams of cyber-poetry with opening lines like: 'Information in formation' (woah deep stuff there, dude). 6) The Information Superhighway -essentially the co-option of the Net by business and government; an attempt to replace active two-way on-line traffic with a passive one-way street of video-on-demand (which no one really wants anyway) and consumer surveillance.

Beyond that, I don't much like self-styled 'realists' who argue that, as the Internet is already commercialised, the Infobahn won't make much difference. The Net may be full of noise, but it has also freed up information in all sorts of interesting ways. To just dismiss it now as Internet Inc is the equivalent of giving it all up in a sulky huff. I'll end with the most worrying problem; worrying because it has to do with me. The latest musical outfit to turn their hand to multimedia are Massive Attack, who have been experimenting with a virtual reality game involving the Eurochlld symbol (pictured above) created by band member Robert '3D' del Naja.

There were plans to show off the game at a series of exhibitions of the art work (from graffltl-lsh aero-sonlcs to computer graphics) being staged In conjunction with the upcoming Massive Attack tour, but apparently there were problems with funding. However, those who go along will be able to see the Impressive computer animation. With Its atmospheric flavour, It bodes well for the promised CD-ROM. The first exhibition is at London's Collection Gallery, 264 Brompton Road, London SW3 (071 581 2716), In the last week of October. Sonic may have a long life ahead of him as Sega's corporate mascot, but It's hard to escape the feeling that the games themselves are running out of steam.

The latest, Sonic And Knuckles (44.99, pictured top), gives equal billing to the character Introduced In Sonic 3, essentially a red version of the familiar hedgehog, but with a different haircut. Unfortunately, the gameplay Is pretty much the same old Jump-and-bounce platform stuff, though a touch harder. One attraction, however, Is that Sonic And Knuckles Is what's been labelled a 'retro cart'. This means you can plug It Into past Sonic games and take new characters like Knuckles Into the worlds there. Value for money, I guess, though Sega would do better to come up with something which actually tried to expand the tired old platform genre.

Send E-mail for Jim McClellan to Jlmmccclx.compullnk.co.uk. full of silly little people and that 'yer actual human contact' was much better than online communication, though E-mail was, of course, a jolly useful thing. Much of the talk on the Net is babble and many Internauts are indeed irritating, but you can't help wondering about the power relationships underlying this last objection. It's a bit rich for columnists to slap down Net contributors. They have their own public platform.

Ordinary folks don't, which is why a fair few of them have embraced the Internet. Any backlash is only a necessary adjustment after all the hype and has little to do with the Net perse; it's more a question of media dynamics. First there is the phenomenon story. Then comes the moral panic. Coming close after that is the backlash.

Then, after a suitable gap, the comeback. With the Net, we're currently going through the backlash stories, though we are about to enter a phase in which the Net is incorporated into die everyday consumerist whirl. For proof, look at the various Internet magazines. Already out is Bmap's Internet and coming soon is Future Publishing's I suppose these magazines are all right as far as they go. Unfortunately, that isn't very far.

What they do is slot the Internet comfortably into the computer magazine racks, turning it into another 'brand' (like PCs, Macs or Amigas), and then supply simple product information. Internet, for 10 OCTOBER 1004 LIFE 03.