Tuesday 19 August 2008

The best of times, the worst of times

The Urban Dictionary is a fascinating example of the whole web 2.0 caboodle - a dictionary of american slang written by "you". Its handy when decoding some comments left on blogs (such as gr7, rotflmao, lulz) or figuring out what the titles of British romcoms are actually referring to (I wont link to examples here, as they are invariably dubious activities of a sexual nature).

But then you see the definition of real words, like, I dunno, "feminism". And we see the trolls emerge. Are all commonly used web 2.0 sites so sexist? Misogynistic? Abusive? In this brave new t'interweb world, my heart sinks (and blood boils) that the mirror is held up to society, and the same old same old often emerges.

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