Politicking Me Off

It was famously sung that "the internet is for porn", but a casual glance at most congregations of faceless internet users hiding behind avatars and aliases (i.e. chat logs of populat multiplayer games) will show you that there are really only two things that the Internet is widely used for.

1. Chuck Norris jokes
2. Debates about American politics

While I'd really like to talk about the former, the latter is what seems to be the topic of interest today.

I'm a regular, avid, addicted player of the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, and on any given day, you would expect to see this:

Person A: hi im new can i get sum tips tnks
Person B: l2spel nub
Person C: You learn to spell, noob.
Person D: *newb
Person E: This is why America is going down the drain.
Person A: im not american
Person B: gtfo nub
Person E: You don't have to be racist, especially since we have a black President now.
Person A: america sux
Person B: u suck
Person C: You both suck, and so does Obama.

And so on and so forth. While this is hardly an academic and scholarly debate on a respected platform, it raises a key issue; the internet can serve as a powerful tool for the transmission of political messages. In places like the United States of America, where voting isn't mandatory, the internet (like how some populat television shows) may be used to reach the younger generation, typically less inclined to bother about matters they don't view as directly relevant. Putting Obama's campaign on Second Life and spreading news about McCain and Hillary on Facebook makes it relevant to them.

I would wonder if and when Singapore's political climate starts to ascend to the heights (or descend to the depths?) of the world wide web, but then, it's a whole different ballgame here, isn't it? And besides...