I miss the old internet

[JunkMonkey]

Having said all that, and bemoaned the ubiquity of the everything these days, the new interconnectivness of stuff does have some upsides. This evening, I read that French actress Anna Karina had died, and I was listening to Roller Girl, a song she had made with Serge Gainsberg.

My 17 year old daughter walked by at that moment. "Great song," she said and started singing along.
"You know it?"
"Yeah. I like Serge Gainsburgh's stuff - as long as he doesn't sing. And this one's great too..." she said leaning over my shoulder and hijacking Youtube.

How does a Scottish teenager living in rural isolation become a fan of 1960s French Pop music? And all sorts of other non-obvious top 40 radio teenage fodder? She likes Talking Heads , The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Nina Hagen - actually I think she wants to BE Nina Hagen... All sorts of weird and interesting stuff. I'll say I like such and such a song and she'll come back with, "Yeah but I preferred Nina Simone's cover.... " She's 17! How does she know more about Nina Simone than I do?! She's constantly introducing me (via Spotify) to stuff I should have known about years ago.

Wouldn't have happened before.

 

[Fung Koo]

Is the real problem that our sophisticated internet usage used to give us an edge over people socially (because of the sheer amount of crap we know at a much higher level than the average bear), and now it doesn't as much because everyone is caught in their version of the wikipedia hole?