Invasion of the Internet Zombies and Thought Snatchers

Although the show The Walking Dead has been in existence for quite some time now, I have only recently started watching it.  In case you were like me (highly unlikely!), the plot is fairly simple: a local police chief, Rick Grimes, wakes up from a coma only to find himself in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.  What ensues are interesting moral scenarios of what to do during such an event.

It's a very good show.  Granted, sometimes frustrating if you want a resolution already!  But it does present the viewer with interesting moral challenges.

Zombie trope and metaphor is usually linked to the reality that we live daily.  It can be directly related to government control, government causing epidemic, or zombie within us, people that are "awake" and those that aren't.  Quite simply, the "walking dead."

As I was watching the show, I could not help but make the comparison between the undead and the internet trolls.  The number of people, who make it their "job" and "purpose" every day to sit behind the computer and cause debate chaos on the internet.  These "keyboard warriors" are intellectual cowards, who do not know how to form an argument and very rarely stay on topic of the original article.

What's disconcerting is that they have been given a priority and a voice (which sounds more like the growling of the zombies than actual sentences), and that people who have something intelligent to say are usually dismissed.  In other words, eaten alive.

But what's more disconcerting is that the troll mentality has spilled over into the blogosphere and even worse, into the regular "print" publications.  Writers are no longer arguing ideas.  They call each other names and try to dismantle each other's ontological structure.

If internet trolls are zombies, then many writers (whether bloggers or regular columnists) have been bitten by the decaying and rotten teeth of the zombies.  The infection is spreading.  The question is can we find the cure before the infected ones either die or become the undead themselves?

It is not surprising that many excellent writers and good intellectuals, who actually create reasoned arguments are losing hope.  Just like the characters in The Walking Dead, they are tired of running away, finding food or ammunition, seeing the next journey as a possibility of a rescue or an end to the madness only to be completely disappointed and finding that an end was just a mirage.  We lose energy when we try to fight the "internet zombies."  How many times can you fire a gun until you run out of ammo?  How many times can you send an arrow into the mindless brain of a zombie until you run out of energy?  Some want to "opt out," which, on the show, is a euphemism for suicide. 

In the past, if someone wanted to comment on an article, they had to send a letter (or an email) to the editor.  Because of the act of sitting down and writing a letter, a person choosing to say something had to at least think before composing his or her thoughts.  Now, the democratization of opinion has annihilated a potential and actual intellectual debate.  It's easy to type something in your pyjamas, with smelly morning breath, from your mommy's basement, while you hide from the world and an actual encounter with a person. There are no consequences.

I am not sure how to go about this, but a face to face encounter has to emphasized now more than ever.  As a writer, who is trying to reach a bigger audience, I oscillate between quitting this blog (opting out) and keep going.  I can't say that I am hopeful, but at the same time, I don't want the zombies to eat me.

I guess I'm just going to have to get more ammo, more food, keep a cool head, and organize a group of real people in order to fight the invasion of the zombies and thought snatchers.