No interest in internet politics
Avoid computer rooms when you should be working. Full of scurrying students when you just can’t be bothered. It seems a university campus (would you believe?) throws work, or otherwise guilt, at you from every direction.
But take a closer look at those computer screens and you’ll be relieved to see a multiplex of emails, flashy websites and games like space-pinball-spider-invaders-solitaire.
That’s more like it. Using the internet for what it’s for – whiling away those hours that could be spent doing something infinitely more productive. You cannot help but lose yourself in a virtual world, which is even, and only, structured by distraction to endless, useless wonder-sites (although Charlotte Church Sings the Communist Manifesto animation might be informative).
So it’s easy to understand that the SU is as hooked on the net (it’s so hi-tech I mix my fishing metaphors) as the rest of us. In fact it’s a bit jealous of our web love and wants to get in on the action, giving us the opportunity (oh, thanks so much) to vote online for union motions (I vote they sway harmoniously during UGMs).
Spoilsports. Don’t they know that the internet is a haven of idleness and doesn’t want to be taken over by anything ‘important?’ Well, actually they do, as revealed by their misguided belief that doing it online will sex up the voting process, and themselves. In pasting their scandalous solicitations onto the grimy window of the world, the SU recognises their work is at home with with the electronically ephemeral. It is all a bit Big Brother, that model of democratic involvement in issues of national importance.
Yes, the SU needs to develop the appeal of its online fun-and-games. Why stop at Charles Clarke’s level of desperate yes-no-no choice emailing? True democracy allows us a platform for fuller expression of our strong opinions, like the scrolling text messages at the bottom of Celebrity Love Island (though democracy should never get in the way of bottoms). Why not extend this to burning SU issues. Cynic, you may shout, but I fear the measures will appear token in comparison to the apparent campus apathy.
If you have comments to add, why not make them known to the SU, or even contribute your eloquence to this section of Nouse? Are you bovvered, though?
