What on Earth could this statement possibly mean?
He believed in it so much, he said it twice. The second time he leaned into the mic and spoke s l o w l y. Our keynote speaker at last night’s ADDY Awards 2008, was David Milenthal, a saucy 114 year old former pundit and business owner from the Columbus area. I was thrilled to hear him talk about himself for the thirty minutes preceding this most profound statement, but apparently not as thrilled as he was. He got to tell himself (us) about how to behave socially to reach success. He reflected on how rich he is, then modestly relayed how slightly less rich he actually is. He reminded us wisely (and without getting “political”) that it doesn’t matter who we vote for, as long as that candidate is one of two specific candidates he mentioned by name. He imparted the knowledge that formal education is only marginally useful, while having a dad in a bowling league or the seat-of-your-pants ability to chat a random topic for 5 minutes could take you, well… as I surmised, to the stage of a hotel auditorium to self-indulgently keynote a local awards show with your fuzzily relevant life story.
OK, I’m giving this guy a pretty hard time. The speech was all-right. He polished a couple of wise nuggets. But it was mostly boring. Except—EXCEPT—for the one claim that haunts me to this day. Brace yourself.
“Green is the next Internet.”
Again.
“GREEN IS THE NEXT INTERNET.”
I repeated it to myself, out loud, a hundred times on the way home. I concluded that THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.
Forget about context. Honestly, this remark effectively disintegrated all context from the face of the Earth; I really have no idea what he was talking about at the time. That said, I can’t invent context that would make sense of this. The INTERNET, a revolutionary communication medium and content delivery system, will—somehow—evolve into, or be replaced by, a vaguely-defined set of principles for a 50 year old environmentalist movement (How old is the Internet?). I tried to get it, if only because I was intrigued. It was like a mystery from Lost. I brainstormed “what ifs” for a while and talked it over with the wife and friends. In fact, I would have written this blog last night, but I couldn’t figure out how to distribute it to my readers on A BRANDED IDEOLOGY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATIONISM.
I truly believe, and I feel some remorse for saying this, then slightly less remorse for saying this about a rich guy, that a man in the twilight of his career was trying to make a statement of such profundity that it would become his legacy. “He’s the only one who saw it coming!” They might say. He sees the Internet as a social fad that has become an integral part of everything we do, and perhaps he predicts the Green Movement will do the same. If this view, from 600 lightyears into space, is what he meant, I’ll concede a little bit. A LITTLE bit. He’s clearly wrong… but at least it’s strung together enough to cover his rear end.
The truth is, the Internet is the most significant change in human behavior since… eh, I don’t know; since we started living in cities? Since the builder-machine could defeat the muscle-man? Whatever; it is absolutely not a fad. It’s not a facet of human existence, it is an important piece of our giant social bridge to the future. The future where everyone has a pet tree and wears recycled paper underwear. I guess.
He threw a dart, and broke a window with this one. There is no comparison between ‘Green’ and ‘The Internet’ that any average human could make. We’re not even talking apples and oranges here, we’re talking apples and the Pacific Ocean. Apples and farts. Apples and the works of Chuck Klosterman.
So, since I’m not an average human being, I’ll hand it over to you. Maybe you were there and remember context. Maybe you can conjure up a genius interpretation. Or maybe you are laughing too. In the comments section below, plz explain why ‘green is the next internet’.
