Joe Moody’s Web Adventures

With our remote-controls and keyboards, we not only surf TV or the Web, we surf reality itself. Reality is a summation of the five senses. The infinite possibilities of our digital environment enables people to change reality like changing a channel.

There is no mainstream anymore, just many streams running into the same ocean.

• from having 3 Network TV stations most watched, to hundreds of channels on digital cable or satellite

•  from Casey Kasum’s American Top 40, to Napster and iTunes

• from one superpower opposing us, to hidden terrorists communicating over the internet globally

•  from the locally owned “Ma and Pa” grocery store, to WalMart Online

Instead of having one career for life, Generation X migrates through multiple career paths. The journey becomes the end. This is our psychological defense to the cutthroat nature of the corporate environment, with downsizing, outsourcing and technologically driven change.

The result is less loyalty to corporations, less expectations, more willingness to learn new skills, and overall apathy when it comes to turning a buck. We surf from job to job, reality to reality, whatever pays the bills.

Previous generations had a handful of television channels, many of us now have so many channels we don’t even know how many or what’s on them. It’s like when McDonald’s surpassed the 99 billion served and stopped counting. Nobody knows how many they’ve served but it’s a hell of a lot.

Technologies like DVR’s (digital video recorders) and TiVo further enable people to select the particular reality of their choosing, or surf several, with no ads or time constraints.

Video games enable people to interact with simulated realities, not only are they becoming more lifelike, but they are becoming one of the entertainment industry’s greatest money makers.

The Internet allows people to connect with unique groups or others who share similar lives globally, providing unlimited ways for ordinary citizens to customize their own reality.