Ben Elton's Blind Faith and the Internet

I have been reading Ben Elton's latest book, Blind Faith. While it is Elton's usual mix of high skulduggery, manipulation by authority and a bit of a riff on 1984 (as are most of his novels), it still raises interesting questions about the role of the internet in our lives.

In the terrifying dystopian world he creates, it is the internet that is used to enslave society and enshrine ignorance. It is a world of blind faith, where the theory of evolution is "monkey man" heresy and only faith in "The Love" is the prime philosophy.

The internet has become the main influence and channel of people's lives in Elton's world. Everyone is monitored (a la Orwell) but are embracing that monitoring. Everyone wants to be a star, to be noticed, to celebrate each other's personas - every part of them. As for "personas" - everyone's name is more like an internet username than a real name. That's why they have names like Tinkerbell, Madonnatella and Lexus and the children names like Gucci KitKat.

It is a world where everyone must share everything about their lives - even sex on a video "tubing". It is also somewhere where clothes are almost non-existent. It is considered bad to wear clothes that cover a person's body, as it makes that person "more special" and therefore a snob. Being a snob is one of the biggest crimes in Elton's world. As is wanting an education and reading fiction. Yes, self-help books are the only allowed books.

It's a short attention span, everyone's opinions are equal, exhibitionist, ignorance-is-wisdom nightmare world. The problem is, the internet forums are headed in that way. And that is part of the subject of this blog.

I have had two years as a contributor to the Behind Big Brother Australia forums as "Bonovoxpop". I went on originally to counteract the arguments by a hard right-wing ideologue who called himself "ColB". He was saying all sorts of things about the union movement which were either half-truths or selected, isolated incidents which did not represent a wider truth. As a result of this original purpose, I continued as a defender of those attacked by the likes of ColB.

As time went on, however, I began to observe all sorts of other features of a fairly prominent internet forum. And a lot of them were not pretty. There were people who liked to promote sexism, racism, homophobia. Fortunately, the moderators usually shut them down. During each BB season, there were a number of writers very keen to say all sorts of libellous things about housemates, secure in the knowledge that they were just "personas". It is a trend I personally find disturbing. Opinions about a person's actions is one thing - comments on their personal lives outside the show is quite another. But my point usually fell on deaf ears. People, I was told, have a right to say anything about BB contestants - their entry into the house gave people the right to makes all sorts of comments about their entire lives.

As I continued to write, I must admit that I caught an addiction. To being read, to being responded to. I was led to believe my opinions mattered. That people actually read them. It's quite seductive. And I started to focus more and more on getting free time to contribute. This year, 2007, had become the time for maximum exposure for this Bonovoxpop creation.

But, as attention increased, as did the size of the knives. The tipping point was my support of Michelle, a loud, abrasive but largely inoffensive housemate who briefly irked the people's favourite girl-next-door. Her parenting skills were openly questioned and she was accused of being a woman who was prone to violence and needed an AVO taken out against her. Completely exaggerated and wrong. Yet to explain her actions in context was seen as a act of provocation against the majority view of her.

It was then the battles became personal. Abusive, threatening private messages came in. It was then I started to think about my posting. It started out as a way to defend the union movement and was now was having a real-world impact on my family, because I was spending time away from them. But with the abuses and threats, it stopped being fun and I needed a way out of it. Problem was, the addiction was strong and was fed by the success of an accidental, unplanned campaign to support Zach. But I still needed to get out - and was fed by the desire to not let other posters get the satisfaction of "driving me out".

It was in the time after the series that I discovered other disturbing trends. The personal attacks turned into private enquiries into my real world life. Then I discovered that other posters had had a similar experience to me. Some had been driven away from the forums because they offended the moderators in some way. The moderators made abrasive, in-house comments on others. It was all, to me, rather bitchy and too much like high school. And, when reflected upon, not particularly intellectually stimulating anymore. There are some examples, but not many. The forums seem dominated by pseudo-intellectual chatter and home spun, anecdotal chatter.

Having said that, most of the forum members are nice people and I do wish them well. But I realise that I must stop feeding this desire to have my opinions listened to and responded to. Being a "Persona". I think it's about time I plugged back into the real world - and more important, begin to formulate opinions based on sound principles, rather than sounding off at the first juncture. And start reading again.