TL;DR (he he, joking)
I seem to fail to put my finger in what it is that your tread wanted to accomplish, I don?t get it, you are complaining about people for not liking to think?, that?s obvious, general public or ?pop? culture is based around what appeals more to people, and tastes are so varied that they go with fart jokes and such, things everyone can understand, now let me put a few things I thought while reading your long post (jack ass, you made me read : P)
First, you seem to have mixed two topics that while remotely similar are not the same, it looks like you are mixing ?pop culture? with ?Internet culture?, allow me to elaborate on that, you´ll see, Pop culture is what appeals to more people, what everyone likes, and in general people are lazy, they don?t like to be ?taxed? or ?waste time?, we have come to an age where information is exchanged at such pace that meaningful conversations are really scarce, and as such, listening to music, or watching something that really makes you ?think? makes the information exchange slow, and that makes people get bored, more often than not people would rather have many channels in their TV and a fridge full of beer than a bookshelf filled with books, why?, because they think ?reading? is a waste of time, of precious little time, and with all that?s happening on the world they would rather distract themselves with more ?instant gratification? that achieving more ?meaningful gratification?, in short, I think people want to be numbed down so they are ?blissfully unaware? of what is happening around them.
Now, that is not to say everyone is like that, but most people are, and I don?t think it?s a bad thing, it´s just how the present age and circumstances have come to be.
On the other topic, internet culture, well, if the mainstream media is about fast paced information exchange, the Internet is its greatest achievement, with a few clicks you can reach any type of information, and discover new things, but as we have already stated that people want ?instant gratification? it?s obvious to assume they will be downloading porn or watching old TV shows on you tube, they are ?distracting? themselves, but hey! That´s not bad either, but there is something else in the Internet people can do, and that is congregate with peers that think like them (or so they would think) the forums, that little news spot, your personal column where you are sure to have people read what you write, and you can make your unique and witty comments?
But well, people are lazy, so most of them just try to make a comment about a topic in a fast paced form, a few words resuming a whole train of thought, a few words resuming political, cultural, economical and racial background in a single text, people try to reach and appeal to a bigger audience, and so, obviously people will make repeated posts and find themselves saying exactly what another person said, why?? Because people are lazy, and with so many opinions flying from here to there well, it?s hard to make a dent in the collective mind of anonymous, it?s hard to ?shine out? and as you stated before (people think they are unique and smarter and wittier than everyone else) they become crushed by the sheer amount of ?nothing? that could come at them, no one noticed them, no one posted in their comment, no one answered their question?
And that crush makes them try to appeal to more people, and more and more until witty and smart comments become just another form of pop culture and fart jokes, it?s a vicious cycle, but again, it is not wrong, because in the end there are rare cases in which people come and actually make a difference, like your post, it is meaningful, filled with emotions and ideals, reading it is taxing and boring, but if people do read it, they will gain something more than ?instant gratification? (or so one would hope).
