My friend and I are in a battle. The other day he came strolling into the living room and announced before another friend and me that porn is the driving force for the internet, or that people who like porn made the internet what it is today: a sleek, fast connection, with streaming video and the capability to support hundreds of thousands of images.

Now, I will admit that the announcement was not entirely arbitrary – the conversation my friend and I were having was pertinent to the subject – but still, it made me angry. Pornography is pornography. It exists in degrees varying from ‘artful’ to “Hustler” and beyond. Yet to think of it existing beyond its primary and frankly, obvious function, and actually accomplishing anything worthwhile seemed to me (initially) more than just a little far fetched.

So I challenged him to a duel of sorts, and sent him out of the room to prove his argument with statistics while my friend and I continued pillaging Youtube and eating snacks. Then it occurred to me: he’s probably right. As much as it irks me to concede on such a point, it was right in front of me: Youtube, Streammetv, Alluc, are just a few of the many sights that utilize and support all of the above mentioned technology (not quite including porn) and I watch them all.

Ok, so downloading porn and watching crap on Youtube are not the same thing, but aren’t the principles nearly the same? I think so. The sex industry rakes in a hearty $57 billion in revenue worldwide, $12 billion of which is US revenue (more than the combined revenue gained by professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises or the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC), with $2.5 billion is related to Internet porn. Youtube, on the other hand, while mostly remaining a non-profit forum for uploading more than 6.1 million videos still managed to capture 9,305 years (yes years) of our attention in its first year running. That’s not including any data polled last year.

Technology is a softly alienating science. It brings many people living far apart closer, and enables one to keep tabs on the lives of friends. Just a few weeks ago I caught up with a few friends I had in middle school from a different state. If it weren’t for Facebook, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered. Yet, I can’t count the many, many times I’ve come home, to different homes even, and greeted the back of someone’s head because they were absorbed in something on the computer. How is it that technology can bring us so much closer to things that are far away while virtually (or literally perhaps) disconnecting us from what is real?

A week or so ago, a friend and I were again sitting in front of the computer, and he showed me the Milwaukee PD’s Youtube site. It’s a collection of surveillance videos, as recorded from that evening’s news, showing tape of captured crimes committed around the Milwaukee area. On one side I find it amusing that the MPD has chosen to ‘broadcast itself’ along with certain other Youtube hits originating in Milwaukee; but on the other I feel a little guilty for watching it. Sure, these videos are being uploaded in order to identify these suspects, right?

This summer, while wired life may have you pointing and clicking as fast as you can to keep up with our ever evolving culture, keep in mind that outside of Youtube’s seemingly endless waves of hilarity, and um, all that porno, that there is a completely real world out there to engage in. Happy surfing.

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