Anti-social networking

Just watched last week's South Park - illegally, I'm afraid, via this site - http://www.watchsouthparkonline.net/ - though I see it as kinda legitimate as South Park is freely and legally available online in most of the rest of the world.

Apparently it's a bit of a viral video at the moment, as it took on Facebook and some other examples of what may still be called web 2.0. As far as South Park goes, it wasn't the best of episodes. Parodying Facebook and Chat Roulette is like shooting fish in a barrel; they're already totally stupid and pointless, so identifying their pointless stupidity didn't really stretch Trey Parker very much. Given the relentless criticism of the Pope over paedophile priests in the previous week's episode, I would have expected a few more jokes about abusive grooming online, rather than what was basically a retro Tron parody. Still, good stuff, and perhaps satire about Facebook needs to be kept pretty simple if it's going to be understood - and hopefully influence - most of its loyal members.

For better South Parks dealing with internet culture look for 'Over Logging' from season 12 and 'Make Love, Not Warcraft' from season 10. In the former, the internet disappears, and Stan's family loads up the truck to head to California, where there's rumours that there's still some internet to be had. The Grapes of Wrath parody is a bit simplistic, but the depiction of the internet as good for nothing but porn and chat is savagely accurate. (Computer geeks didn't think so, and 'Over Logging' seems to have prompted some bloggers to claim South Park had jumped the shark - they were wrong.)

Disclaimer - I have a Facebook account, but I haven't logged onto it for about two years. Can't remember the password, and can't be bothered to get it so that I can delete my profile. And after watching South Park, I'm not sure that I dare...