A Separate Truth.

While chatting with my brother this evening before bedtime I was reminded of a feature of the internet I often overlook. There's truth and fact and then there's what we get on the internet. On the one hand, we rely upon such websites such as Wikipedia and its ilk to use as reference tools. The fundamental problem with this is that it provides us with a sort of black and white photograph of truth. Everything's there alright, but it's not a genuine representation of what we're looking at. Now something to keep in mind here is that aside from scientific formulae which act as veritable as possible, all forms of documentation are subject to bias.

Bias cuts out the "noise", and gives us a pretty and tangible truth. Bias on the internet can weigh on facts so much as to change them and cause them to become new truths. I say "truths", because if you think 2+2=5 long enough then you're mechanically unable to see the difference. The oft most targeted subjects for truth adjustment is the stories of our celebrities.

This idea was rather cleverly handled by "Family Guy" in the episode where Stewie ties up the family and takes off with Brian as a hostage. The family was deciding to pass the time by starting a rumour about Rob Schneider. The rumour was that he pays migrant workers from Home Depot to choke him while he's in the shower. Towards the end of the episode we see this rumour to be true. What I like to think happened is that the rumour got out and Rob thought, "You know that sounds like a bit of fun!" and off he went. When the myth becomes fact because it makes sense, it becomes part of the truth of that subject.

Often when talking with my friends about comic book characters we refer to the term "canon". What this means essentially is what things about a character are considered true, and what things are dismissed as gaidens or side-stories. One of the more discussed characters is Wolverine. There have been stories about him that extend back to Feudal Japan, and other such nonsense. While this borders on the realm of fan fiction, it never gets introduced into the canon of the Wolverine story. It's not true when describing who and what he is. The idea of what's canon and what's gaiden really extends into all realms of pop culture. Stories about people, places and things slowly work themselves into one of those two categories. The more heinous and cruel often get dismissed as a vicious rumour in order to protect the subject.

This all came up when talking about what happened with Isaac Hayes on South Park. I made reference to the belief that he was not pleased with the way they handled their episode on Scientology. Without going into too much detail facts and quotes got melted together and became part of who Isaac Hayes was. It's a tad ridiculous to surmise a man's behaviour into what was probably a regrettable outburst on a subject he felt strongly about, but as the internet is want to do they vilified his actions.

My brother asked me, "Is that the truth, or is it from the internet?" This is the line that got me thinking about what is truth on the internet? In his mind it appears to be a malleable concept that doesn't faithfully adhere to the rest of reality. I'm a bit more flexible in that I think the truth on the internet becomes part of the truth in the real world, it may just take time.

Take escargot for example, and tell me that didn't take months of people saying they taste amazing before someone first stuck it in their mouth.