The Anorak’s Manifesto
Posted by The Powers That Be, Thursday, 28 August 2003 at 7:01 pm, EDT
But what’s it for? The Internet, the world wide web… It saturates, from the child to the anachronistic octogenarian. The entire world is linked via the phone lines, no barriers… no limitations… and faced with this mind buggering field of possibilities what do we do with it? What do we want from the global network?
Shopping and porn.
We could access un-dreamt of libraries of information, grasp cultures as foreign to us as alien life forms… nah… just give us a few cheap C.D.’s and a butcher’s shop of splayed thighs from a battered shack in Ohio (genuine amateurs all!) and we’ll rest happy.
Now, I’m part of the problem… don’t get me wrong; I fritter away my time online just like all the rest. I’m a positive E-Bay junkie… if it wasn’t for financial limitations you’d never get me off the damn thing as I desperately try and fill some bookshelf gap that’s been laughing at me. But it’s a damn shame… I’m the first to admit it. What should have been the greatest meeting of souls, all joined by a modem and the willingness to connect, has descended into yet another wasted opportunity.
Some fly the flag, I’ll not deny, message boards are awash with mixed opinion, people getting together to discuss their varied obsessions. But most of us peer in, voyeur like, shuffle around for awhile; chuckle at the ferocity of it all… then slip out again unheard. It takes a certain type of person to grab this medium with both hands and run with it.
The anorak.
It’s okay, let’s all admit it now. I have a theory you see, it’s not popular, it’s downright loathed by the majority but here we go:
We’re all anoraks.
Told you you wouldn’t like it, you feel the stigma, panic at the inference and before you know it my ears are awash with hasty excuses and justifications. But hear me out. Everyone I know has an overriding passion for something; some medium, sport, hobby or pastime; something they enjoy to a level beyond the call of duty. Something they can quote chapter and verse on, details and facts far beyond basic general knowledge. Think for a minute, think about something important to you… something that thrills you… something that means absolutely bugger all to many others. Got it? I hope so because here’s revelation number two:
Being an anorak is a good thing.
Can you feel the love in this room? Oh yes… to be passionate on a subject, to enjoy anything deeply… In what way could that ever be construed as negative? To be without an anorak, that would be the killer. To be completely and utterly devoid. Dear God give me my hood any day.
So, that’s going to be one of the purposes of this column, to wear the anorak with pride. To take that word back from the cynics and ‘queer-like’ wave the flag with abandon. Do the same, trust me… it feels good. You’re online now; get yourself to a search engine, tap in your poison and find that chat room.
Then talk… what’s the worst thing that could happen?
You connect.
G.
Spread the love, it’s good for your skin:
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Listen to: Statues
Their second album filled to the gills with funked up stuff that’s far more addictive than it has any right to be (although feel free to skip past track two - it is unfailingly shite.), not my usual cup of tea but the bugger’s got under my skin. |
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Read: Transmetropolitan : Back on the Street by Warren Ellis
Graphic novel; like most of the reading matter I’ll be recommending here, ‘conventional’ books need no defender. This is as far away from the public perception of a ‘comic-book’ as you could hope for. Blisteringly witty and painfully precise in its observations of who we are (or what we’re becoming). The first in a series of Transmet graphic collections featuring the ‘adventures’ of Spider Jerusalem; journalist and commentator, think Hunter S. Thompson combine him with Bill Hicks and then cover him in tattoos. Paradox Comics will sell you a copy and post it to you for a price that is so cheap it’s bordering on the whorish. |
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Watch: The Ladykillers [1955]
One of the greatest films of all time, don’t be put off by its age, it’s class and wit put it head and above many recent pictures. Featuring Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers it concerns a gang of criminals who use a little old lady as an unwitting accomplice in a robbery. When she discovers she’s been used she vows to turn herself and the gang in. Trapped in the house with her the gang decide that she has to be killed… but who will do it? Astonishingly black in its humour, brilliantly acted. |
Categories: Anorakism
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