Throughout the book “The Age of Earthquakes,” many literary features are exhibited such as imagery and irony in order to present the internet in a negative light. This book gathers everything negative about the Internet and how it has affected us and shows how it would be if it also physically affected the Earth in this same manner. Although they do a successful job in creating this notion that the Internet is rotting the minds of all and is single-handedly destroying the Earth, they don’t acknowledge any of the positives of the Internet, and everything it has done in order to allow for humans to spread their wings and help others.
As the book describes individualism to be a form of a brain mutation, and that as the years have been continuing, individualism is much more scarce and people would much rather belong to a group. This is false as we are continuing to become more individualized. In order to make this argument more evident, the authors utilize a black background, and as we all know black has negative connotations, including desolation. The irony within this specific example is that they describe anyone who is not part of a group, any group, as a threat. However, in modern society, it’s evident that certain groups are posed as threats, and although many people are happy to belong, being part of a group isn’t equivalent to acceptance.
Although the points made by the book are valid, in terms of how easily our generation is poisoned, the authors chose not to address the positives. They describe the negatives of the internet using derogatory terms and satire, using imagery and irony. The internet has allowed people to connect from all over the world and hasn’t only polluted the Earth, as the book describes.
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I like how you mentioned that the book describes individualism to be a form of a brain mutation. It really encompasses the general idea of the book as well as the overall scope of our life as the world continues to progress. Furthermore, I think your pastiche really encompasses the intended message and the overall theme of the book commenting on the novels idea that the world is not prepared for the new innovations of technology and that the world is becoming more "dark" as a result of technology and the internet.
ReplyDeleteYou mention an interesting perspective on behalf of the authors, that they are making the comment that the internet is bad without addressing the positives. I also strongly agree with your analysis of the solid black color pages that feature short comments in white, but along the same line of thought, what would that mean for the grayscale photos? Maybe they are trying to imitate a time when technology did not include color. Additionally, I like the comment you propose in your pastiche with the idea that it is not ridiculous to believe that some people would value internet connection over survival.
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