Memes

Here's what N. M. Klein wrote about the internet all the way back in 1998, likening it to a labyrinth.
I don't say this often, but this text has completely changed the course of my life.
Some choice quotes:

1998 is still a dangerously nascent stage in the Internet, while a trillion dollar nest of dragons sets up shop.
Inside, you have seemingly infinite choice, but practically no way out. In fact, you prefer being trapped a bit. That gives the story some bite. Why enter Happy Imprisonment? Because you slowly catch your breath. You expect to outwit the program.
Pockets of confusion in the system let the player imagine that there are ways to subvert it. It's a Faustian sim-bargain. The player submits to the labyrinth, then pretends to cheat.
Simulating revolt is more fun, and a better investment. [...] But consider what sim-revolt implies as a broader model for public life? We pretend that the labyrinth of the Web makes us free of the global corporate program that builds and owns it. We feel above the swamp of idiotic web sites. We know how to surf. The demon apparatus can't get us. We can dig out of anything. We're never trapped.
Recently, there is talk of voting on the Web. Is a cross between ergonomic fascism and the shopping mall the best frame of mind for making political decisions? Let us not mystify information delivery too much. Despite the services, it is not fundamentally democratic, only the freedom to chat. The server and the search engine are a feudal plantation. They decide for us, when to plant, when to hunt.
The labyrinth is a mood of passivity. It's like saying you're never really trapped in bad traffic. Just because we can subvert the Web by saying nasty things or engaging in cyber-sex in the margins, or downloading information cheaply, does not mean that we are subverting any core reality.