I could say that not even when my cousin Rufo stabbed me five centimeters with a ham knife that Christmas Eve of 2002 did I feel as attacked as with the last video of Pantomime Full about the “audiosos”, but it would not be true. It hasn’t even affected me. audio lovers we have been receiving indiscriminate attacks for years and this is not (by any means) the most aggressive.
Yes, I find the debate that the matter of the audios has generated very curious. If it shows anything, it is that we continue to discover new ways of interacting and communicating in the digital world. Very new ways, indeed. So much so that there is no “consensus” on how to use them.
And no label messaging platforms become the Wild West: a place where everyone wants to impose their law. It is worth dwelling on it (and the science behind it). We talked about my cousin Rufo another day.
Is there a correct way to use the Internet?
FORCES YOU TO LISTEN TO HIM:#audios pic.twitter.com/fYTOK2aSIs— Pantomime Full (@Pantomima_Full) March 31, 2023
What happens is that, as Hamburger and Ben-Artzi pointed out, for years it was not possible to talk about the Internet in general (because there was no single type of service on the Internet), nor could it be talked about Internet users in general (because the personalities of Internet users are as varied or more than those of the rest of the population).
Each service, application or community it created its culture, its etiquette and the rosary of criteria that decided what was admissible and what not in these new social environments. We quickly discovered that these apps could be designed to facilitate pro-social behavior and aid in the formation of social bonds in the same way that they could facilitate anti-social behavior and herding.
It was a world of communities, of public spaces, of self-managed and terribly dynamic digital sub-cultures. That is where the modern meme was born, people began to shout with capital letters or the first social norms were created to achieve a healthy and enriching digital space. This, as the internet has “swallowed” the world, has changed radically.
A new world (full of unbearable people)
All these communities and their uses and customs have come together in a handful of applications that are everything in today’s society. We can take email as a precedent (it is not by chance that the first netiquettes arose for him), but what has happened with platforms like WhatsApp is unprecedented. In Spain almost everyone uses WhatsApp and that means that people with radically different styles, customs and uses can be found on it.
It also means that The Internet has become full of unbearable people.. People who do things that we dislike, that make us uncomfortable and, worst of all, believe that these things are normal and acceptable. Today, the Internet has an almost infinite capacity to show us the world as it is. And to force us to grapple with him, if we want to have it our way.
A decade has passed since WhatsApp introduced the first audios and, in these years, the clash between “solotextistas” and “audiosos” has been constant. Each one has their arguments and reasons, but the truth is that this war is simply a war for the definition of social etiquette of messaging platforms. A priori there is no better or worse way to use that service; nor can there be.
Ultimately, it is the same war that exists in all human institutions. What we eat, the time we do things, the way we dress and, of course, the language we speak are all subject to this constant (sometimes invisible, sometimes totally public) war. The history of humanity is the story of how we agreed. And how, meanwhile, we had a few laughs at each other’s expense.
