Blaglash.com

Hopefully all of the readers of this blog are now well aware of the audience-led IRL raid of the keynote interview Sarah Lacy conducted with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook at SXSW.

Let’s take a look back, now that we’ve had time to digest.

Discussed: Sexism. Would the audience have been as cruel to Ms. Lacy had she been a man?

Conclusion: Sarah Lacy is as dignified and qualified a journalist as anyone else on this planet, but sure, it probably played a (huge) factor.

Discussed: Twitter/Hyperconnectivity/Blogging/Et. al. Has the web itself (and blogging in particular) created an exclusively non-authoritarian environment wherein each blogger, contributer, and audience member expects the red carpet treatment?

Conclusion: Probably. But that doesn’t mean for a second that people should behave like childish assholes.

So why, then, when you get a group of prominent web entrepreneurs together in a room, do they start behaving like spoiled children?

Hypothesis: The web was once run by overprivileged baby boomers.

Editor’s Note: Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Lacy are young enough to be these childish asshole’s children.

I will turn 23 years old in six days. + I have spent time on the internet every day for going on 12 years. = I am roughly as old as you can possibly be and still claim to have grown up with the web.

Why the fuck is nobody discussing this factor?

Mark Zuckerberg isn’t some random silly 23 year old nerd. Mark Zuckerberg made one of the first two technological developments created by what is truly the web generation.

…And he had the resources to do it.

The sexiest developments of the web are now almost always invented by the people of the web generation, and always funded by the powers of the past.

In essence, what we’re seeing aren’t random samples. It’s the future of the web. And it symbolizes a culture and change that spreads far beyond the internet.

In 1973, when Gravity’s Rainbow was published, a 23 year old reader would have called it “entertaining,” “interesting,” and even “hilarious.” A critic from Faulkner’s generation would say something like “the book is an interesting development of letters that in form makes us, the reader, question what it means to communicate.”

The lesson here is this: The “older” generation of any time is always responsible for the heady thinking, believing that what they’re doing is some kind of legacy, and yes, at times being whiny brats when their legacy or voice is threatened / silenced.

Ask the two groups about the Saddam Hussein execution video being leaked to the internet, and here’s what you’ll find:

Older generation: “With new technological developments, rumors have been squashed, truth revealed, and the brutallity exposed to millions of viewers. Instant communication has enlightened millions.”

Web generation: “Holy shit. That’s fucking crazy/hilarious/insane/nuts.”

Meaning that the generation who has grown up with the web is no longer impressed by its capabilities and no longer blown away when a new development occurs. It’s natural. Tell us of a new technological development, and we’ll ask why it hasn’t already been invented.

Tell the older generation that the man who filmed/leaked the execution video was executed themselves, and you’ll get hours of politcal jargon.

Tell the web generation, and they’ll laugh. They’ll talk about how crazy it is that someone had to die for their own personal entertainment.

That is possibly why the older generation’s IRL raids are small and insignificant, and ours are vast, powerful, and funny.

They have the power but don’t know how to use it for the people. We have the people and need the power.

So I ask you, the older generation, in complete trust and with no irony to:

Give the power to the people.

Keep funding our businesses, technologies, and ideas.

It’s what allows us to spread communication and a collective weath of consciousness. It’s also what allows us to drink dry martinis in strip clubs.

We thank you for the internet, for the hyperlink, for RSS, and for the Apple II.

You deserve the power you have obtained with these developments, and it’s your money.

So keep funding our startups. It’s what gives you the chance to succeed. To not only be evolving the essence of communication, but also to be a true philanthropist for the greater good.

Keep funding our startups, and please refrain from Baby Boomer bitches and moans about unfair treatment at our conferences.

Keep funding our startups, and please allow us to do the development work.

Keep funding our startups with power, and we’ll match with people.

Give us money, we’ll give you community.