The Internet Writers

He who reads the electronic mail of the newspapers that allow everyone to read it discovers an original universe that would have been hard to imagine two decades ago. At the end of each article there are the commentaries of some active readers, known or unknown, who would instantly take part in the debates on this theme. At first one might be enthusiastic. Anyone can say his or her opinion, can argue with the author of the article and with the whole world. In every electronic underground of each newspaper another one appears, this one written by the readers: some sort of echo without any boundary, a chain reaction, significant for the mentality of the nations of our days. The communication extends indefinitely, the public’s reaction is stimulated at the maximum, and the articles become the subject of a polychrome tournament.

On the other hand this phenomenon has a bad side also. The chance of spontaneous communication, with no rules or obligations, can have as a result a delirious communication. One of the groups of people that form the wrong side of the "free market" in the Internet is the one of the writing maniacs. Usually, this kind of people doesn’t have all the printing space they need in order to express their ideas without any obstacles. But the Internet gives them this opportunity. They can write as much as they wish, they can argue, and, more than that, they can enjoy the satisfaction of being read by others. Their opinions aren’t quite published but they are in the middle of things, people read what they write and they are in contact with a virtual group of interlocutors. We aren’t going to examine this mania in this article. Sometimes it is all about the fluency of speech. But sometimes it can be just a way for someone to chat about something he doesn’t know almost anything about. This way the Internet becomes a substitute of socializing. One can see in some of the commentaries traces of melancholy of those who don’t speak as much as they wanted to, traces of the lack of friends, traces of the need of finding the social group they belong to.

Another group of actors of the electronic epistle is the one of the frustrated people, which is wide and completely different. The Internet has an enormous advantage: it can hide the true personality of the writing. The anonymity is guaranteed and, this way, the freedom of speech is total and with no boundaries. One can write anything about everything. One can argue with kings and ministers, with famous writers or models, with great groups of people, institutions, or prestige. One can really be someone important! One can be everybody’s equal, without having to justify that. Not only that one can reply to anyone, but also one can do that without any censorship. One can be obscene, hysterical, offensive, didactic, joky, arrogant, insidious, crazy, paltry, liar or an idiot. One can unleash itself without having any fear. One can throw his cap over the windmills; he can mock everyone and everything. The Internet athlete doesn’t have moral, political, or grammatical constraints. He has no responsibility. His way of thinking is the one of the travesties, of the ones hitting in the dark, of the masked burglar. He sneers perversely in the backstage. More than that, he is taken into consideration. In these cases the Internet seems to be a perfect tool in order to unleash yourself. But it doesn’t do that. It amplifies your anger. The one who suffers because of that cannot get cured this way. A lot of mental and moral illnesses come out in front, into our computer screens, though they could remain in the familial or asylum environment. We know more than we did about madness. We know too much, more than we want to know. This is an unexpected collateral effect of the technologic progress that, once started, " no one and nothing can stop it", as Caragiale (a classical dramatist that lived between 1883 and 1921) once said.