Internet Bathroom Wall

Why don’t I write more about myself? Same questions in my inbox, again. I really don’t know how to explain this better than I already did, numerous times. This is not that kind of blog! I deliberately leave out my everyday life; I envisioned this blog differently. 

This blog is my opinions, my voice, my passion, and it’s designed for my dear and smart friends, and everybody else who feels that way and enjoys a little NY-style rambling about life, people, situations, and circumstances; in today’s crazy society. A little laugh, a little comfort, a little inspiration, heck, even a little frustration — that’s our enterprise. The critical mind is one thing no one can take away from us.

Please let this settle with you, so I don’t have to repeat it as many times. I promise I will include more personal stuff in the future. 

I read something really disturbing the other day. In an interview about Dane Cook, one of the most famous American Stand-up Comics, he was talking about his new Stand-Up, his half-brother stealing millions from him, and most devastatingly — how both his mom and dad died of cancer in a nine-month period. 

He goes on about how difficult it was to delete his late mother’s phone number from his cell phone (the worst imaginable thing), but in the midst of all that, another invasive moment occurred — discovering people’s opinions about him on the internet!

All the people that know me, already know my strong stance on media, tabloids, paparazzi, and most of all — losers that come on people’s blogs, websites, emails, and social networks, anonymously, of course, to negatively comment every single thing, every single person, every single achievement; everything that lack in their lives. 

I call them commentators. 

But this Dane Cook thing was something else. 

As he was in such a dark place when he lost both of his parents (and basically his brother too, having defrauded him); he was restless, angry, and in a search of any kind of therapy, relief, anything that could ease his mind. So one day he decided to Google himself. 

Bad idea, man. 

Anyways, since this guy is hilarious (didn’t you see his stand-up? Go Youtube it, now!), he, of course, finds laugh everywhere; he joked that when he Googled himself, Google asked him — “Are you sure?” 

I’ve heard a lot of anonymous hate. You always wonder how these people don’t feel any embarrassment to be that jealous, bitter, and overall just shitty human beings. But this was something else.

I can even understand that, let’s say, rich beautiful movie stars piss people off. But Dane Cook? A Stand-Up Comic? A person that makes you laugh?

Dane Cook got an email, anonymous of course, with the following content:

“Your parents got cancer and died to get away from your shitty comedy.”

Are they trying to be funnier than him? Are they mad he has a career they want to have? What could possibly possess you to say something like this?

You actually got on your computer to send someone you don’t know your opinion about them?

It’s cool not to like someone or his projects, art, music, film, whatever; but to actually go and email him? I don’t get it. You chose to spend your afternoon emailing someone you have never met to haunt him about his dead parents?

Dane is a comedian. His comedy must have been so offensive that this individual talking shit about his dead parents just had to take action. He had to save the world from Dane Cook’s terrible comedy. He fights for justice, and something had to be done.

Do these people realize what they are? The bottom of the barrel of the society we live in; bitter, unsuccessful, lazy, unimaginative. And it all makes sense, why they would target Dane Cook. He’s not your average Stand-Up Comic. He’s not unassuming like all of them; they are mostly unattractive and a bit homely. He’s cute. And sexy. Also funny. 

He’s also an actor sometimes. He dated Jessica Simpson, and had a thing with Jessica Alba. Is that where the hate is coming from? 

And it’s cool, hey, guys hate famous guys that are dating their dream girls, that’s old news. Like they ever would, even if he didn’t. 

Same with women. They hate other women dating their heartthrobs. Trust me. I know. But it doesn’t matter. They will always have the internet, the place of their dreams, a spot where they can always exercise their frustrations. It’s a paradise. 365 days in the year. 24 hours a day. Very cheap internet. Very comfy chair. The world, ups, sorry — The web is their oyster.

Dane Cook also said something great — haters and commentators are — “The bathroom wall of the Internet”. I loved that parallel. I was always looking for a sentence to explain this phenomenon, and this is it. 

The Bathroom Wall. 

Where you write shit, while you shit. Where you write something no one will know you wrote, so you can trash, you can insult, you can bullshit all you want. 

You write lies on the Bathroom Wall. You are so opinionated when writing on the Bathroom Wall. Because you know no one sees who’s writing it. You don’t have the same balls to say the same words when you come out of the bathroom. 

Hate comments = Bathroom Wall of the Internet. 

I'm amazed by this pandemic of hatred toward publicly known people. I mean, it wasn’t like that when I was a kid. Nobody cared this much. But now, it’s like everybody wants to be famous, they are so hysterical and aggressive toward the people that already are.

Time Magazine did was a poll a few weeks ago, in which the majority of people said (anonymously, of course) that they would rather be “poor but famous, than extremely rich and unknown”.

They also said, in the same study — “life is not worth living unless everybody knows about it”. 

Scary.

That also explains why anonymous people love social sites so much; it’s their make-believe celebrity playground. A place where they feel like they can approach the person they worship, and if they do not get the response they expected, the worship transforms into hate.

I’ll leave you with the most fascinating example on this subject. The prototype of everything we said so far. It’s rather a phenomenon this persona, everything around her, what she achieved, and the amount of hate she’s getting. She is a white trash ex-stripper from Minnesota, but the one that made it. She’s one of the smartest people of our generation; achieved fame with exactly — 4 blogs, 1 book, and 2 scripts, and got an Oscar. 

In a flash. 

Plenty of reasons to hate, naturally. Her name is Diablo Cody (well, not really, but hey, she’s a storyteller; why not start with the name?). Last year she read an article about how much people hate her, so she decided to write a blog about, actually TO her anonymous haters, and here is the best part:

“I’m sorry that while you were shooting your failed opus at Tisch Film School, I was jamming toxic silicon toys up my ass for money. I get why you’re bitter. I took exactly one film class in college. I don’t deserve to be here. We’ve established that. But I’m here. Accept it. I know my name is fake and that it annoys you, but I like my fake name. It’s engraved on an Oscar. Yours isn’t. I’m in love, I just bought a house, and my boss made E.T. I kind of have to focus on reality.”

Cha-ching.