Grave New World: The Horrors of The Internet

It’s not a “New World” though. Most users of the internet don’t think of the internet as “new” but rather as a given part of their lives since birth. My (relative) decrepitude affords me a (relatively) unique perspective. I was horror before the internet. I’ll always be horror.

Touching first on social media – as an author I’m supposed to maintain a web presence, and I do. I don’t use Tik Tok, snapchat, or any of the other ethically questionable social sites for obvious reasons. I have an Instagram account which is connected to my facebook which is attached to my twitter so I can (theoretically) make one post across all three and be done for a while. Many horror fans and creators connect via these outlets. Back when Facebook evolved past being something more than a MySpace knock-off, a blue billion similar social sites popped up, many hoping distinguish themselves cornering the market on a single niche, fandom, sport, or subculture — horror included. 

These sites came and went. After all, Facebook made them redundant. Mainstream as it is even posts relating to the most obscure of horror content can reach more users. Zuckerberg’s baby will always have greater reach than any specialty site, several thousand times over.

The good folks over at slasher.tv seem to believe they can succeed where those would-be pioneers failed — but it’s not looking good. Before I start ungratefully scrutinizing that potentially wonderful gift horse’s dental characteristics, let’s talk about Youtube, which I use almost religiously.

There is a LOT of internet horror entertainment content, and even more online media devoted to discussing the genre. Most of the latter content is on Youtube and consists of movie reviews, overviews and lists. Recommendation vids are popular as well, but these can reasonably fall under the umbrella of reviews. 

This world of self-made videos critiquing and analyzing fright flicks consists mostly of, well… unpaid movie watchers. Not film students, not professional film critics, or psychologists, not cinema historians — though there are a few. Nothing wrong with that, anybody is rightfully free to share their opinions about their interests. But it leads me to wonder – and this occurred to me long before the internet and the Land of a Thousand Casual Critics – what is the actual purpose of film/music/book reviewers, professional or otherwise? Personally, I can’t recall the last time I was actually swayed to watch a movie by someone’s review. In fact, I stopped reading reviews before seeing a movie long ago.

“Worst… review… ever.”

I used to love to read the reviews in the local newspaper the Friday of a film release. That was when you had to know something about film to get paid as a critic. At the same time, Fangoria magazine had a regular two-page section devoted to horror book reviews, which I also devoured.

But the average film goer, reader and listener is not trained in these arts, or even how to “appreciate” them. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? It seems absurd — willingly allowing a snooty arbitrarily designated “expert” to dictate to you what to like and why. Entertainment should absolutely be a visceral experience, informed only by one’s mood, experience and interests. 

And that’s whence my questions arise. Those interests and such are not the same, even among any two individuals. If my opinion for hating a movie is because it reminds me of a bad time in my life, well, that doesn’t apply to you. You may like it for opposite reasons, or no considered reason at all. 

One this occurred to me, I started reading reviews AFTER consuming the film or book, just to see if the reviewer saw something I didn’t; or agreed with my opinions. Then, one day I asked myself “well, why should that matter either?” It didn’t. It doesn’t. Logically it’s more enjoyable to consume the art than to talk about it after the fact.

Overwhelmed by this dearth of reviewers, critics and opinionated amateur comedians, I think I’ll just stick with the actual horror entertainment itself, much of which is now consumable in the same smaller portions as the opinion stuff.

SEE THIS MONTH’S NEWSLETTER FOR PART 2: The Resurrection of Analog Horror