Will Self: The internet is a false friend 

The problem with the nice, stylized subtitling is that it's Will Self, and it is therefore not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was somehow contextualizing "praying" But, of course, we all knew he said and meant "preying"

The onscreen text is completely unnecessary.

I go into a book shop, browse around, find the section where the books I like to read are, open some attractive looking books. I flick through a few, smell that new book aroma and finally choose one or two I consider most interesting. I then go home and buy them £10 cheaper on Amazon.

So.. Going to a book store is enjoyable. Buying online is unengaging. I miss the days of old underground book stores.

In a sense the internet is a painkiller - a free realm where we shed societies perceptions of our identity and qualities. But this is often romanticized - in actual fact it acts as a distraction from dealing with those kind of material prejudices in the first place, which in turn serves to maintain them. Many people think the internet is the start of a trend in a new era. I hope it comes crashing down in all its fragility, after which we can sift the good bits from the bad amongst the rubble.

i dont see a problem with most of what he says here.

Rather fanciful view of a book-buying experience. Can't say my local bookstore would have any idea what books I should be reading or would be interested in.

But I DON'T have a conversation when I go into a book shop Will. And I dare say I could live without chatting to the girl who serves me a carton of milk.

Will Self assume people want to interact with each other...

Love listening to this man talk about nearly anything. The fact I discovered him through vic and bob is somewhat astounding XD

"the reason he doesn't say face is because he has a wide vocabulary" i have a wide enough vocabulary as well to know what a visage is, and what it means, but i dont say it. i think he said it to make himself sound smart

Will Self finds time portal on the Charing Cross road which connects to a bookshop in 1923. Bought an Agatha Christie but bookseller recommends he reads The Wasteland. History!

I agree with a lot of his points but I have never had a complex, mediated or personalised experience in a bookshop or any other shop for that matter

'Bullying' on the internet is just a reflection of bullying in the real world though. i agree with that experience shit, bang on braav!

After almost two and a half decades on this planet, I can probably count the light conversations with store staff I've had on one hand... Let alone complex, mediated or personalised experiences. Most shop staff either aren't paid enough, or don't have the level of depth or knowledge to recommend or push you towards purchases anyway. And I don't blame them for that in the slightest, I just don't see how it's a mark against the internet when all my shopping experiences have been just as simple.

I agree with what he is saying however the real problem will be when virtual reality becomes so visually and physically lifelike that it will require effort to differentiate between reality and technology. Right now its quite easy to tell the difference and most people seem to be able to engage with the internet and virtual reality whilst behave normally in real life

Well that's one strawman won't be giving us any more trouble. Congratulations on your flawless victory over a non-existent opponent, Nimrod.

It seems intelligence is directly proportional to negative imagination.

The problem with Self's perspective on this topic is that he seems to be lamenting an era of interpersonal interaction in shops that hasn't existed for at least a decade. There are very few shop staff members, particularly amongst the larger high-street retailers, who have any idea about the products they sell other than on which shelves they sit. The impersonal shopping experience of both the high street and internet are two sides of the same corporatist coin.

I don't think anyone considers the internet to be a friend, it's enjoyable but it's not a friend.

Self seems to think that the rest of humanity are cretins. That he can see the these things about the online world, but the rest of us, dimwitted sheep to a man, are completely taken in. It is what it is, Will. We get it. Your amazing insights here are pretty mundane really.

I very much dig the intro music, spliced vocals, love em

"this rage and anger that they're not famous" EASY FOR YOU TO SAY WILL SELF. YOU'RE FAMOUS YOURSELF. I'M JUST SAT AT HOME RAGING ALL THE TIME. ARRRRGHHH

In that case the problem is the people, not the internet. As in not giving someone a gun because some people use it unintelligently and shoot themselves with it. People should be responsible for their own well being and if they decide to hurt themselves, too bad for them.

WOW.... what an incredibly wise man will self is.sIGH. how i yearn for conversations with some depth, But of course im not seeing the forest for the trees i know...depth, beauty and connection are there to be mined in any & all interactions ! you just gotta dig for it ! & sometimes thats a bigger ask than others. And WOW how revealing are the comments... !!! there we are all there - how we obsess about the trivialities of life !! spelling mistakes, anger,over intellectualisation, opinioning ,

One of the last people to own a physical copy of a thesaurus and a dictionary, rather than simply relying on Internet search results. He'll hold the Book of Self

i feel inspired to write a comment, as it seems everyone else has.

Will Smith goes against George Orwell's idea that language should be simple and easy to understand. 'Contingent' is not a usual word, it is used in philosophy and will therefore confuse a lot of people. He means 'fundamental' characteristics = the word is actually badly used.

I find that in many bookstores the owners/assistants have an attitude that I am there to ruin their lives and would rather be chatting to their fellow employers than me. The idea that they are any way knowledge on their stock or have any interest in your taste would also be a mistake.

Great vid; hilarious and thought provoking. His eloquence is somewhat distracted by the annoying text which keeps popping up as quotes (which are mostly inaccurate).

Because visage has been part of the English language for about 800 years, there was a little something called the Norman conquest which led to many French words being co-opted into English. The reason he doesn't just say face is because he has a wide vocabulary and so can therefore choose the words that best describe the ideas he's trying to get across rather than just blathering on in pidgin English.

Online shopping; yes I do miss unhelpful shop assistants. I miss those rich relationships. I do think he is stretching to make a point.

I envy Will Self for being able to hold forth on the internet desultorily and superficially without a scrap of notes in his tremor-free hands. A quarter century of drug addiction and hard- earned anomie have fortified him with a formidable vocabulary samples of which he does not hesitate to flaunt in scribal, actual or virtual encounters. I have seen him use recherche, rococo, orotund, and egregious in a single breath without batting an eyelid. But "many myriads of people..." was over the top !

Brilliant

"Visage" is English. "Face" is also French. Everybody has their own idiolect, which is their own personal, unique expression of the language they speak, a kind of dialect of one, and it's many years a-building. He's himself; if he twists your knickers, you're the one with the insecurity.

Great video I enjoyed this very much and I as much concerned and I feel that I have fallen prey too in ways. Ha!

I don't really agree with his conclusion, but I agree with most of the message.

people must be "preying" upon, not "praying"

Yeah, I'm sure traditional book sellers were always telling their customers to get out more and stop reading books. I'm sure that each and every one of them deeply cared about their customer's well being and that the answer to "what book should I buy?" was never some variation on "what we've got in stock". I'm sure that Sainsburys and Tescos prior to the 1990s were always full of deep friendships and fascinating conversations between the shop assistants and the customers.How can anybody take this prattling jackanape seriously?

yes, yes, and yes again

Promiscuity is the road to loneliness? That's not what it looked like outside the Lava Lounge in Bournemouth last Friday.

내 친구에게 네가 매우 많은 책만 읽고 있구나 말해 주고 싶다니 영화를 배우고 싶은 학생이 놀 생각 없이 같은 영화를 수도 없이 반복해서 보고 있단 말이에요. 영화 하는 놈들과 놀아야 네가 그 영화는 그저 부조리를 담은 부조리극이었다는 사실을 알면 되는 것이었는데 그 부조리극의 부조리를 해석하려고 하고 있었단 말이죠.

Totally agree with Self. He's spot on.

Will Self clearly doesn't use Facebook, he has got it all wrong.

I thought he talked very clearly and very easy to understand - unlike 99% of youtube comments ;) I think there is also element to what he is saying, that people don't want to understand. Because it's bit close to the bone - especially on a site like youtube. I mean, how many wasted hours can people waste on this kind of "interaction". After a couple comments, I am spent, interest-wise.

Am I missing something? I'm confused how Will got from using an online, impersonal experience of book retail to a friend advising you on time you spend reading books or money spent buying them. The fact I purchase any item online does not stop friends of mine 'in the real world' being conscious of my activity and thus sharing their thoughts. It just so happens I shop online because I can browse at my leisure without being persuaded and pressurised by poorly trained and pushy sales people.

Will Self is very perceptive here...especially about this age of 'frustrated' celebrity that we live in now. Its a phenomenon that hasn't been analysed enough publicly, yet I see I see it everywhere. The way people act and the way they want to be seen makes me think I'm looking at a parade of wannabe GQ covers. The great question of our age is where did all the ordinary people go? Or more to the point why do people feel the need to 'conform' to some surface image of being 'extraodinary'?

I also think it's entirely fallacious that Self suggests that online friends and 'actual' friends are inversely correlated. He makes that statement with nothing whatsoever to back it up other than wishful thinking.

@SuperGraffic but it could more effectively damaging because you feel such a strong sense of the two things being separate, and that you are sure you are safe from it. Things do not have to be a part of the real world to change you or harm you.

4:48 [citation needed] Not saying he should provide a reference in this video of course, but that's a claim bold enough to warrant citation. I mean really? Even taking into account the internet juggernaut, Facebook?

@bowbrick Don't you think it's quite likely that someone else was responsible for the editing, rather then Will Self ?

English is rich with influence of many other languages. Latching onto specific words seems a little petty and utterly valueless. If anyone needs to see what I have written with 1 or 2 word syllables, let me know and I will translate.

Also, this video explains Stickam. Protip: Don't go there.

Wonderful - every commentator here is such a graphic representation of what Will is describing :D Oops, does that make me the same?...

Do you actually think the guy talking edited the text into the video?

perhaps the word brainwashed was a little strong - I suppose what I meant is that Capitalism is very good at simultaneously giving us something that we think we need (creating a demand) whilst ruling out alternative models of commerce and politics. As it happens the internet was not created to be a huge sprawling shopping device which is in part destroying the face-to-face social interchange of commerce but it didn't take long the marketeers to get in on the act...

LETS PUT TEXT UP THAT EXPLAINS WHAT THE GUY IS SAYING WORD. FOR. WORD. Also let's add random filters to make it look artistic.

What a long winded way to say the internet is anonymous

Tell you what, it's frightening just how ''lost'' I feel when my computer won't access the internet (like today and yesterday). I'm definately hooked. I went back to my books, but I thought how I must check out some things on YT coz you DO get serious stuff on it.And going into shops isn't ALWAYS nice. I got a lecture from a total stranger for buy ''Frosty Jack's'' cider. It was only coz my mate suggested it. It was like something from Self's fiction, the woman's husband had died from the stuff

I think it trivializes our intelligence and insight to cast a net in which people consider a website making product suggestions their friend. Most people I know are astute enough to deduce the difference between a human dispatching real advice and an algorithm which most likely has only past purchases as an input.

i would like to have a chat with this guy :D

I want to live in Will Selfs head

Actually, I suspect that it would take rather more verbiage to articulate his ideas were he to be as monosyllabic as you suggest.

At the beginning, it sounds like Self is describing reification, the objectification or 'thingification' of otherwise non-commercial or unexchangeable orientated facets of life into goods intended for exchange. Common feature of Marxist discourse.

He thinks we are all idiots. Thanks Will. Never though of this before (irony/sarcasm alert).

His rants strike me off as a sort of inertial push. I think anyone can say pretty much the same thing about a bookshop as well when you compare it to a library. Or vice-versa. The clear distinction would be that in one case you'll be implicitly persuaded by a person towards an action that satisfies his economic aim. The question should rather be, is that rich-personal experience the absolute reason you visit a bookshop? I can't even see through why would he think internet pretends to be his friend. This technology is a medium. At the end of the day, it is humans communicating at the ends. Even when they're not computer programs too are human constructs.

shouldnt he say 'none of them was'? thats what they taught me at school

@manychefsbroth It's the relationship with "pushy" salespeople that I think Will wants you to experience. It's the clever act of bartering that helps us to read people. It helps us to reward ourselves, often at the expense of those "poorly trained pushy salespeople" you speak of. It helps you to develop people skills that you really can't learn by shopping and clicking on an Amazon web page.

Yes !! I deffo think that you are right MrBazza.Will uses words-the way he does ...not to make himself sound smart but because he has a 1st class VOCABULARY and not a lot of ppl ( to quote Michael Caine )...Know Dat !!

I love RU-vid because it's like looking in someone's head. You can peep into their psyche by looking at their channel. I'd have thought any writer or psychologist would find that interesting.

He has a point (and great interview!) but yet I think he overestimates the 'personal relationship' with the bookshop owner that he says is lost with the move to online e-commerce. There is probably an argument to be made that the retailer in your favourite bookshop was just putting on a facade to get you buying a book and returning again in the future! Will Self is right that the anonymity means that there is not that ongoing relationship of you having a clerk you recognise and them hopefully recognising you (though honestly that depends on you being a frequent enough patron, or a big enough spender) for them to make sure to remember your name on the return visit!), but then the 'old fashioned' relationship is perhaps the more exhausting one for the shop worker who has to keep the mask of civility up! Perhaps it is gullible to think that e-commerce is very different from the older way of conducting transactions (as with dating) tl;dr: All commerce is about people who are not willingly coming together being forced to interact to receive goods (or in dating terms, a service)

...and yes I have been part of the beast but there is no alternative (at the moment) but I resist on a daily basis. For instance I try and think before making any purchase whether the means of production suit my view point and matches my values and I always try and buy things that are being sold as near to the point of manufacture both geographically and economically. In a world dominated by Capitalism it's one of the only tools we have to combat it... perhaps I'm tilting at windmills?

Marry me, Will!

he has a point. For a change.

I think we medicate our sorrows on the internet, but if we realise that the internet's true reason is didactic or to induce creativity it's a good thing. Sometimes technology makes us live outside ourselves and I think it's important to nurture our curiosity by not introducing technology too young. We have a tendency for idealism in youth which is beautiful, but we misconstrue that reality is manufactured. If you examine things critically, you can see the art in everything., You can play God.

We were miserable fucks long before the Internet came along and no, none of us ever had a profound human interaction in Waterstones.

yeah that's right

small talk ,chit chat.I confess I'm a self absorbed bugger, though.

.... and if anyone wants to know what a syllable is, please let me know so I can specifically ignore you :)

Will's new words of the week: contingent/contingencies.

I have started dreaming I'm on RU-vid. Heaven's above ! I need to ''get a life.''

@oneillsdc5 Maybe he meant it as a double entendre?

@craigtindale1 My thoughts exactly. Well said.

@aman9619 You need to find a new bookshop to go to. The experience of a real conversation with someone that has a history of recommending books and who is themselves a big reader is invaluable. As far as the big words go, give me smaller, single words that are the equivalent in meaning to each of the big ones you've listed and then you might have a case for disparaging their use.

he's just annoyed he gets even smaller residuals and royalties from kindle and ebook sales

reminds me of Fahrenheit 451

Chuckle chuckle (the sound of me laughing). Yes, I did kinda feel put on the spot. To be fair, it IS one of the drinks of choice for working class British alcoholics, but my mate likes it (funnily I tend not to drink much). I'd have got a better class of booze, but I was nearly broke.Ironically, her friend was in front of me in the cue with some cans of Tennant's (like, 9% larger) !!!

Yeah, i was probably being unnecessarily bitchy there, sorry, uncalled for. Bad day. But it is an English word and it doesn't purely mean face in English- he does say "face, body language, visage" so I'd imagine he's referring to countenance or general appearance in this instance.

Yeah but why do people choose to read 'crap posted on the net'? It's only because their education hasn't inspired them to look for something else. 'A bird that had never tasted fresh water dipped it's beak into brackish water year after year'....

It just seemed as if he was bashing the internet, in fact I believe he was, not the people who use it. And yes that was condescending and wrong, I knew that all along and just wrote my comment in reaction to the main premise of the video.

OMG totally lost track of what he was saying as soon as I noticed you spelled 'preying' as 'praying' ... Just seemed incongruous on a video of Will Self

I read and listen to will self........that said his argument here asks only for a better algorithm which will better identify his needs.....................like when I could not spell algorithm and searched on google and found algorithm.........it did not offer me better choices.... or it did but i ignored them... and it didnt alert me..........his point here is only a challenge to progremers......or programmers.....or pogramers....or....i need an algorythme..........

@uzideath From 'Two Boys', by Nico Muhly Could well be the Overture, but that's a guess.

i think Will has a great mind! but i dont fully agree here. i dont think the internet makes people promiscuous or somehow feed the notion of the psychotic within in some way. as an example, i formed a relationship with my beautiful girlfriend over facebook, we have been together for quite a while and we're happy! we chatted as friends first as i chat and discuss with many other people on it. as is always the case, the integrity of the invention is in the user! in my opinion

Loneliness in the real world leads to the need to poke and be 'promiscuous' in an online context. Is this why Self has a Twitter account? I do enjoy Will's journalism, commentary and his insights on society, but this is very much an attempt to distance himself from a phenomenon that he has become part of.

Beautifully articulated ugly generalisations.

can i meet you there next friday?

This is an absurdly incoherent, rambling argument. He claims without evidence that virtual friends are inversely proportional to real friends. Most people interact with their friends both on and offline, so the distinction is either meaningless, or tautological. Then he says that virtual interaction is lonely. Why? Because it is like promiscuous sex. Why? Because 'pokes' (a feature nobody uses) and messages are easy to send. But talking is easier than either, so surely RL is more promiscuous?

There is definitely truth to what he his saying. But he misses the underlying purpose of the internet. It's pretty much like saying "Lecturers aren't really your friend". They aren't there to be your friend, they are there to help you learn. Personally I don't have time much like this strange character to go into a store when I could purchase things with a click of a button.

truer the longer is stats up here