2011 has turned out to be one hell of a year, and it’s only March. Governments in the Middle East have been overthrown, The labor protests in Madison continue, and now the Japan Tsunami/impending nuclear winter crisis is upon us. For anyone more than a bit superstitious, it might seem like the Mayan 2012 ‘end of days’ prophecy is getting kicked off early.

What I find most interesting about last month’s Egypt protests is the fact that social media fueled the whole thing. It’s safe to say that the revolution wouldn’t have happened without Twitter & Facebook. And that makes me very happy, because the idea of ‘social media’ has finally fulfilled a purpose larger than the mundane. Social media is simply a tool, like any other medium, and in my eyes up until now it’s been used to swat flies. This time it was used to slay a dragon.

I’ve been continuously amazed by the inane tediousness of the bulk of Tweets, status updates, etc. that I read on a daily basis. I don’t care if you just got some sweet new Groupon. I don’t care if you just ‘checked in’ to Joe’s Crab Shack. The tool is there to be used in the way that humanity decides to use it, and unfortunately, 90% of the time humanity just decides to spew forth endless amounts of bullshit.

It’s like the great Chatroulette experiment of last year. The idea in itself was absolutely incredible. It was magical. The fact that any person in the world could just randomly connect with anyone else from across the globe was pure genius. Think of all the interesting new people you might meet. Think about what type of strange, wonderful conversations you might have! The possibilities were endless. So what happened? Neanderthals across the globe decided that the rest of the world wanted to watch them jerk off. THAT”S the level of communication these guys could muster from their tiny brains. Imagine how many thousands of times some sweaty, hairy, fat bastard jerking his shit got connected to his doppelganger, and then tried to navigate away via his one free hand as quickly as possible. THAT was the fulfillment of the incredible promise of Chatroulette. If I got to hang out with some Aliens & they asked me to describe the human race, I’d just show them 5 minutes of Chatroulette footage, then ask them if they still wanted to better understand our world. Then I’d probably watch their spacecraft high-tailing it out of our galaxy.

So, when the Egypt uprising happened, I was ecstatic. Not just because another dystopian dictator’s house of cards collapsed around him, but because the tools that made it happen were finally being used to their full potential. Social media that wasn’t used to coat the world with meaningless drivel, but spray white-hot bullets of intellectual truth.

- Patrick Buchanan