1980’s Fiverr Forum Post: When the forum was Rad

[damooch916]

 

Dudes and dudettes. 

In these days of technological marvel and future-esque living, I know some of you are having a less totally tubular time than others.

Many of you are scared for the fast streamlining of a high tech opponent. You’re afraid for your job, you’re afraid of your ability to acclimate and you’re like, wigging out, because you feel that you might bite the dust. You’re thinking, “my story is going to be over faster than Paul Harvey on a handful of no-doz.” 

 

That opponent I’m speaking of is, of course, the computer. 

 

Well, don’t go getting all bogus.

We live in a pretty fast world. Suddenly our phones are cordless. Our TV’s are giant boxes. Our cars can make calls and there’s like, 30 channels to choose from. If these times make you jumpier than Katharine Hepburn’s makeup artist - you’re not alone. 

Add to that, the economy isn’t exactly the most bodacious. 

We’re expected to pay 96 cents for gas. They want us to shell out 1.60 for a Big Mac. Even cigarettes cost a whole dollar … and that’s the healthy ones! 

 

I get it. The idea of looking into the void of a home computer feels like it should come with an Indian burial ground and a house that throws plates at you.

(How nice of Native American’s to still be cool about the whole “Indian” thing. The last thing we’d want is for the world to misread their resistance to that term as some strange pathway to complain about everything. We really lucked out there - because who wants to spend their lives combing over every past infraction until context is totally eradicated? Whew. Bullet dodged.) 

 

Maybe we’re all needing a chill pill. 

 

Listen, every great technological leap is scary. Remember when fax machines were gonna single handedly wipe out secretaries? Or when pagers we’re gonna erase human communication? Or how about when we balked at the new Coca-Cola formula? But now we can’t live without any of them! Which is awesome, because these technologies, just like the wholesome comfort of Bill Cosby always being on your television, are here to stay! 

Some of you may be thinking “what do I do if this computer can do the same tasks that I get paid for?”

Like, duh. That’s a gnarly question. The truth is, you’re going to have to adapt. 

 

Maybe you’re a nameless face. Maybe you don’t have professional respect. Maybe you feel small and you’re afraid that the coming technology will squash you completely. 

Okay, so you’re not as revered as a Woody Allen. Maybe you’re not the trusted face to families everywhere like a Michael Jackson. Maybe you never excelled and gained wide ranging respect like an OJ. But inside of you there’s a strength. A voice. The knowledge that - things change. And in that change, some people will run head first into the new world. They will be the new leaders. While others will shield themselves with moral objections and thinly woven blankets of denial. 

Here’s a secret … those people know that there’s no stopping the future either. Their demands to have an ethical argument comforts them. It gives them an excuse to be rolled over by an inevitability that they are terrified to engage with. That way they can look back and say, “well sure, I lost my job and my kids look thinner than Norm Peterson in a ‘dry county’ but I fought the good fight.” 

 

Did you? 

 

Or did you pretend that your most cultivated arguments would exempt you from the same world changing events that are coming irregardless of your rehearsed foot stomping? 

If I know anything it’s this:

Mike Tyson can’t lose… 

Victoria’s Secret will always be kept by some 80 pound Russian model… 

And no one is ever gonna pay to watch someone just stomp around.

 

It’s time to emerge from that cocoon Wilford Brimley. Because the future shouldn’t barf you out. 

Yes, it’s important to keep our humanity. Absolutely, we must cling to and pass down our traditions. And sure - we need to keep a strong watch over the tech that guides our daily existence … but we also need to differentiate between what will be true and what we wish to be true. The home computer is here. And there’s no going back. Be trepidatious. But don’t forget to also be hopeful. There’s no telling what advances, what fortunes and what incredibly fulfilling experiences this thing may give us. So be hopeful … either way, you don’t have a choice. 

 

And besides, you aren’t gonna let it dominate your life. It’s not like people will just spend all day looking aimlessly at their computer. Not talking. Devoting all their time to screens and silliness. Depleting their social skills, stunting their development, creating falsified versions of themselves in ever complex ways while lowering their dopamine to such crippling degrees that the entire world suffers a depression epidemic - culminating in the explosion of illegal medications and directly triggering the most profound mental health crisis in the history of all humanity …  

 

… Give people more credit than that. 

 

Yours in Total Righteousness - 

 

Tommy 

[damooch916]

Apparently, in the 80’s - my long form esoteric satire pieces went over just as well as they will in the future. 
 

 

[newsmike]

7 hours ago, damooch916 said:

And no one is ever gonna pay to watch someone just stomp around.

Tommy, one word: Lizzo.  I would have attached a gif, but too lazy to have to post the obligatory warning that it must be viewed through a pinhole in a piece of cardboard like a solar eclipse, or resultant optic nerve damage may occur. 

[damooch916]

6 hours ago, newsmike said:

Tommy, one word: Lizzo

I was actually making a joke about the enormous amount of Riverdance, Stomp and bang-about shows that became popular in the very next decade. 

[newsmike]

1 hour ago, damooch916 said:

I was actually making a joke about the enormous amount of Riverdance, Stomp and bang-about shows that became popular in the very next decade. 

I went a whole different direction. 

[miiila]

19 hours ago, damooch916 said:

Apparently, in the 80’s - my long form esoteric satire pieces went over just as well as they will in the future. 

Presently, you can blame it on that new kid on the block, Attention Span. I idly wonder what it'll be in the future, attention subsecond could sound nice, but its acronym, while memorable, ...

Edited May 19, 2023 by miiila
Not awake yet, more espresso input needed...