From time to time the Yankee capitalist oppressors have attempted to force their useless wares upon Dixie, with occasional success. They get our hard-earned greenbacks, and we end up with things like minivans and Egg Beaters.
Their latest attempt to hoodwink us is the so-called Internet, but this time we will ultimately overcome the oppressor and reject this alleged World Wide Web.
As we all know, Dixie’s people are different culturally and socially. Our collective spirit of independence and rebellion will rise within us until we see through the fog of technical gadgetry and the awe of sophisticated machinery, at which time we will throw off the shackles of computerized communication.
Though temporarily star-struck by the Yankee’s baubles and shiny trinkets, we shall nonetheless prevail.
Here are a few reasons why.
Terminology
Language is an important aspect of communication in the South, and the terminology that goes hand-in-hand, or, should I say “modem-in-modem”, with computer domination of the world will ultimately grate on the collective nerve of Southern sensibility.
The conversation under the computer regime would be incomprehensible to the Southern ear.
Computer nerd: Hey, Billy Bob, do you have a web site yet?
Billy Bob: Yep, there’s one in the garage over by the lawnmower. Spider was so big, the cat got stuck in it last night. We had to cut him out with the weed whacker. Fur was flyin’ everywhere.
No, what I meant was, have you used the Internet?
Only as a make-shift flamethrower, usually when a cockroach makes it inside the house. My wife uses that stuff to keep her hair in place, but it sure is flammable, uh, inflammable…it catches fire real easy. Why do you want to know? Real men use Brylcreem or Vitalis.
Billy Bob, you’re thinking about Aqua Net. I’m talking about the information superhighway!
I got a flat tire there once. Somebody let a roll o’ barbed wire fall off the back o’ the truck, and I couldn’t swerve in time to avoid it and the armadillo, both.
This example, alone, should prove the case, but I continue…
The Barney Factor
I am not referring to that purple blob of sentimental drivel.
The “Barney” to which I refer is the deputy sheriff who is required to carry his one bullet in his shirt pocket.
In the South, anything with a screen is expected to show re-runs of The Andy Griffith Show at least once in a 24-hour period. Those that don’t, like computer terminals, will eventually go the way of the do do bird, carpetbaggers, and peanut butter and jelly swirled in the same jar.
The Porch Factor
Although the porch as social medium is on the decline in Dixie, largely because air conditioning has rendered sitting outside inferior for most of the summer, the ability to chew the fat in person, face to face is still a strong preference.
Furthermore, certain activities which are quite pleasurable on the porch become detrimental to communicating on the Web. Tobacco spit tends to melt sensitive circuitry, and makes the keyboard sticky.
The Bondage Factor
It may have been oversight, but the marketing gurus responsible for promoting this bright new era of computing and communicating overlooked the average Southerner’s dislike of being told what to do.
Internet and World Wide Web go a little too hard on the bondage and restraint motifs.
Rob Faircloth once drove a lawn tractor into an enormous spider web.