"I am just an unhappy user"

Setting aside the ironies inclusive in any online complaint about the information age, we wanted to address how, despite our own graceful presence online, the internet is more often than not an utter bastard. To wit: one of our friends has a paraplegic laptop that doddles along through its ageing years with the speed, veracity and enthusiasm of a gout-ridden slug.

Despite this it brings them a strange calm, a patience with the world of technological “advancement”. They smugly imagine themselves above those who imagine themselves driving down the straight path to the wonderful world of Snow Leotard OS, OS XXX, or whatever it is. This week we heard a story from them. Maybe it can bring some answers in this sea of information. Here it be, as we can remember it being told (sincere apologies for any misquotations):

‘So, one fine day… who am I kidding? It was muggy, grey, and to be honest full of box-ticking obligatory to-dos. Anyway, on said not-fine day, I was trying to rid my Toshiba of some unneeded programs and what have you, to get my beloved ol’ codger into some sort of fitness. An anti-spyware program that doesn’t even load up due to the now over-aforementioned problems of the computer was the first up against the wall. So, “Uninstall Spybot” I click. “Why?” it asks. This is a bit of weird enquiry. But never mind. I notice, adjacent to this, a suggested reply: “I am just an unhappy user”.

A section comment below allocates the space to air one’s grievances, explain one’s reasons, and maybe, just maybe, point out that it’s not actually me, but in fact it IS you, yes YOU, you ruin my life with your bullshit, I hate you and I want you gone. You — the virus killer — have become the virus in my life, now be gone you about-turning, ironic fuck!

And what’s this: “I am just an unhappy user”? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How can you blandly suggest such a widely encompassing response, so casually summating the whole essence of my beautiful, magnificent being by virtue of my simple request to ‘Add or Remove Program’ from my personal, not-at-all-parent-bought, laptop computer?

And “just”? I am not just anything. For all you know I could be an Olympic athlete with ADHD! A selfless Wall Street trader who one day offers up his life to save a downtrodden Trotskyite tramp! A totalitarian dictator who knows of course his violent racism is a macabre manifestation of a virulent Oedipus complex., but who, in spite of this, still believes that it IS all the fault of those darned scum with darker dermal pigmentation!

“Unhappy”?

“User”?

Of course I’m unhappy. I know I’m a user. Yes, I’ll “Cancel” the uninstall process. Are you happy now? Remember the breathing technique, you think. Focus on the breath. Breathing is happening. Breathing is happening. You are OK. You are rising above the doldrums of the technological age. You are transcendent. You are at one.’