Being born in 1984, my childhood seemed to develop right alongside the rise of the personal computer, along with the ever-elusive World Wide Web. I was in fourth grade when, unbeknownst to my parents, I first signed on to AOL 1.0 and began chatting with sleazy perverts inquiring about my bra size. I thought it was spectacular. Almost 15 years later, they may have developed parental controls to try and prevent nine year olds from being asked their bra size, but the internet is far from being controlled…
Hooksexup sat down for a compelling Q&A with Clay Shirky, whose new book Here Comes Everybody explores the twisted dichotomy of good and evil that cyberspace continues to inflict on our society, and what that may mean for the future of media, social change and politics….
I realized that everything I've been talking about all these years — how much easier it is for groups to get things done — all of that is the same thing that's allowing the Pro-Ana girls to thrive. Because now, society doesn't get to say which groups get to form or not, and who gets to talk to each other, because it's easy and free. That's a big, big social change, and one that, it seems to me, we're manifestly unready to take on.
Read the entire interview here.
— Alexandra Godfrey