Digital Culture & Dinosaurs

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park was written to explore the limits of science--or if there were any. Today, there's something more uncontrollable than an island of dinosaurs: a global network, without check and balance, having thrown the world into a new, digital age.  

There's something to be said about dinosaurs coming back to our world, wreaking havoc, causing uproars--all because they are something uncontrollable, inexplicable, unsure. With the digital culture today--a world rampant with constant social commentary, virtual worlds and anonymity, cyber bullying and constant connectedness--people are more than comfortable with the lack of accountability. Fan fiction and fan videos abound, parodies and rewrites and adaptions run amok, silencing copyrightists with every new page view; people text and tweet and facebook stalk and post photos and tag people and organize circles; there are forums and Q&A sites where questions give way to ruthless mockery or less-than-factual responses; news is broken, celebrities are stalked, vendettas are played out, all to a global audience. It's a conglomeration of genius and stupidity, where everyone is a user and no one can tell them how to act. There's no escaping it, this global network, a frenzy of free thought, free speech, free access. But free has become synonymous with without consequence.  The internet and the culture it's created has become a sort of monster without master. So when it comes to picking a book to parallel this idea of a world gone mad--and the consequence of no consequences--the story of a horrifying weekend spent in a genius park that just got out of hand seems perfect. So, yes, Jurassic Park is no 1984. But read it through a modern-day lens, applying digital culture to the fears of various characters lived out, and suddenly there are--excuse the pun--graphic connections to be made.

At the beginning of this fateful weekend, Dr. Ian Malcolm, a naysayer from the start, explains the dangers of such power being unchecked:

" 'What should do with my power?'--which is the very question science says it cannot answer." 

While he is talking about dinosaurs romping around an island, immediate connections can be made to the digital world. It's a great tool--an impressive, useful, life-altering tool that's been created and given out en mass. Someone made it happen and then left it to us, unchecked and unbalanced. But there's danger when there aren't rules, expectations, control. And we're facing them now in our highly-digital, highly out-of-control world. So, yes, this is a story about dinosaurs, but it is also a story questioning how far is too far. And this is vastly applicable to any conversation about today's ultra-digital world.