The internet's influence

As I sat down to write my blog for the week, I began to wonder if this page had any sort of influence at all. Of course the answer is "no" seeing how it has only been viewed 6 or 7 times. I then began to think if there were any pages written by average people that did have some sort of significance or pushed that person further in life. And yes, there are some. These people having these pages show what power the internet has over our lives.

Last year my roommate introduced me to the webpage of George Ouzounian, better known as his pen-name of Maddox. His website, the best page in the universe, has had over 220 million visits since its creation in 1997. So, besides the views of his website, I'm sure you are asking what other influence has he had? Well he has received nearly 600 hate mail emails; has 2 internet fan websites; had an organization called Mothers Against Maddox formed to protest him; became so popular from this website he was able to write a book, The Alphabet of Manliness, and have it on the New York Times best seller list. And, along with all that was mentioned, he is able to, in his words, "stay above the water" by selling his t-shirts on his website.

So how does this man do it? The simple answer to that is; the power of the internet. This man, whom so many people love and hate, is able to make a living because of the influence of the internet. This concept is extremely mind boggling to me. Without the internet’s influence over us, Maddox, would never have had a New York Times best seller and never would be even close to as popular as he is now. Just the way the internet is run through CMC was the way he got popular. Someone would send the link to a friend on AIM; or the link to his website would be posted on someone of influence's blog; or another website would be created about him. This cyber word of mouth spreads so much more quickly than face-to-face word of mouth and because of this quickness in spreading news on the internet, Maddox became popular.

Looking reflectively the power of the internet just blows my mind. How someone, who so many people would consider a [insert profane name here], can become so popular from CMC on the internet show's how much of an influence the internet has over us. And like the directors of that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that we watched in class were trying to tell us, we should be aware of the internet's power and act accordingly.