Ontem à noite (re)assisti ao primeiro episódio de All watched over by machines of loving grace, do Adam Curtis. Entre várias coisas que me chamaram a atenção, fiquei com o post de uma mulher da Costa Oeste dos EUA, apelido humdog, publicado em 1994, que parecia antecipar/prever/apostar em muita coisa que nos aflige hoje no ambiente online.
Fui atrás do texto inteiro e é… chocante. Apenas uma palhinha:
i have seen many people spill their guts on–line, and i did so myself until, at last, i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a money–value. in the nineteenth century, commodities were made in factories, which karl marx called ‘the means of production.’ capitalists were people who owned the means of production, and the commodities were made by workers who were mostly exploited. i created my interior thoughts as a means of production for the corporation that owned the board i was posting to, and that commodity was being sold to other commodity/consumer entities as entertainment. that means that i sold my soul like a tennis shoe and i derived no profit from the sale of my soul. people who post frequently on boards appear to know that they are factory equipment and tennis shoes, and sometimes trade sends and email about how their contributions are not appreciated by management.
A presciência dela passa a fazer algum sentido quando se nota nomes conhecidos (e bem antigos) que embasam o texto. Marx, Nietzsche, Baudrillard. Ainda assim, imagine ser capaz de fazer tais associações em 1994, com a web engatinhando. Impressionante.
humdog era o apelido de Carmen Hermosillo. Apesar da insatisfação com a internet, o obituário escrito pela sua irmã mais nova indica que ela permaneceu “cronicamente online” até a sua morte, em 2008. Outro indício de que Carmen vivia no futuro — um futuro sombrio, como o que ela constatou há mais de 30 anos.