Saturday, March 7, 2009

Guest Blogger Robert Hibbs: I-Pod, I-Phone, I-People, I-World

(Hello from sunny Florida. Since I'm on vacation a couple of guys have taken up the reigns of the blog for me this week. The first guest blogger is a man who needs no introduction, he is the great Robert Hibbs.)

First there was the I-Pod, that small hand held device that spared millions the annoyance of getting songs stuck in their heads by having all songs ever recorded captured in a thin rectangular box with a view screen and ear phones so that you could be in control of what musical sounds entered your brain, and spawned from the success of its massive sales came the I-Phone which is now the king of the I-Kingdom. The I-Phone has grown in popularity not only because of it’s easy to use innovative features but also because it firmly reinstates cell phone owners long forgotten need to show off how important they are by giving them a virtual cornucopia of endless annoying applications.






Not only does it do everything and more, but it also alleviates some of the stress that comes with day to day multi-tasking; and caters to the flashbulb attention spans of a growing population of hyper maniacs while at the same time serving as a strong an ever present metaphor for the techno-culture it helps to procreate.





"It’s ALIVE!"


Arguably, the I-phone could be the very first artificial personification of the feel and the lifestyle of the people of the 21st century, and if you don’t believe me you need only look to the letter I.
The I in I-Phone is the same I as in Information. The same I that stands for I’m so special with my phone. The same I that means I have something fancy. The same I as in I want more. The same I as I must have it all. The same I as in I don’t care…I, I, I, me me me!


The people of the future…the children of tomorrow… are made up of a great majority of self-absorbed, self centered, super-selfish, super-snobs whose arrogance and callous can be cleverly masked by a smiley face at the end of a misspelled text message about a juicy piece of celebrity gossip or obscured by the charms of a fun-loving attitude that they project while striving for a life of total excess.


That’s hot.


They want it all and they want it in a nano second. They want all the useless information that can possibly be crammed into our soft, feeble minds. They want to feel special and unique like they’re the prettiest sheep in the herd, and they want all the fancy gadgets and high tech junk they can get they’re greedy little hands on even if it means having to take out four different loans and ending up completely bankrupt in the process.




“Yes…yes… it’s awl groing according to pran.”


You know we have all these wonderful toys. We can download all of the music we want within an instant. We can burn motion pictures onto discs or have them streaming on our computers before they even come out in the theaters. We can talk to anyone almost at anytime from anywhere including space, and at the end of the day when you finally unplug from the cyber world…don’t you feel kind of empty inside? Like something’s just missing?




I miss the old west.


I don’t know maybe it’s just me, but all this technology, as convenient and as cool as it can be, does the opposite of making me feel all “hip” and “with it.” It makes me feel like a robot. A mindless automaton that doesn’t have to think or feel just click, update and reprogram.


I don’t have to remember the lyrics to a song. I can just look them up online.

I don’t have to remember people’s numbers or home addresses. I got them stored on my phone and I never have to dial them.


I don’t have to expel any thought or energy in doing really anything at all. Everything can be done for me from the comfort of my home computer or my handy dandy mobile device.
Don’t get me wrong. If we didn’t have the technological advancements of today we wouldn’t have much of a future. There would be no real progress in medicine, home care, we wouldn’t have bridges…we need bridges...we wouldn’t have comfortable shoes, underwater watches and we would forever be left without things like the pizza bagel.




Which is as we all know a true feat of human engineering.


It’s just that all these media devices are getting more and more invasive, and I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but the more grand devices like I-Phones and I-Pods become the more we start to lose sense of our own humanity and even our reality.




“WHAT AM I!!? WHAT IS THIS!!!”


Technology like I-Phones, and computers in general really, have replaced our need for having a memory. And, by taking away our memories they have in essences taken away our imagination. Without having the need to think for ourselves, it’s really only a matter of time before we fade out completely and become nothing more than an oddity looked upon by the computers themselves though clips teenage androids look up on YouTube.


So I ask you…what’s next for the I-World?


I-Cars?



That wouldn’t be too bad...each wheel could be a toggle switch that runs on musical notes, and instead of a steering wheel you could have a touch screen.


How about I-Skin?



“I feel I-Sexy”


You could get different covers, and you wouldn’t need a USB to connect to your home computer...you could just strip down and dry hump your hard drive.

How about I-Food?



I-Water?



Fuck it! I-Air?


“It feels like air but sounds like Coldplay


I-People, I give you this I-Blog, not to bitch about a cell phone that I can’t afford, but to give you a word of caution. Enjoy all these toys that we have. Make the connections you need to make with them, use them to plan your day but don’t let them run your lives. Stay in control and maintain control over these technological marvels, and above all else don’t let them replace your independent thought.

Because before you know it, the next time you wake up, everything you see may look like this:


And Keanu Reeves won’t be around to save you.
(If you enjoyed this blog entry, look up Hibbs on http://www.facebook.com/ and enjoy his many hilarious notes.)

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