Tik Tok…. Tik Tok By Linda Knight Seccaspina
Each day at exactly twelve noon I would be out on Albert Street flagging down neighbour Murray Wallet when he drove by our home. It was a newspaper sharing ritual of whatever we had on a daily basis. It could be either: The Montreal Star, The Sherbrooke Daily Record or the Granby Leader Mail. Media like radio and print was very important to us in those days.
In fact my family knew Marjorie-May Laurie who worked for Simms Printing in Granby (’69-70) and the Granby Leader Mail was done from the plant. Laurie always knew when certain friends from High School came home to visit their parents as it quickly made it into “the Socials”. The socials found their way to be printed in newspapers on small bits of paper – typed or handwritten, and at times with very odd spelling. But, those social notes brought the female newspaper buyers in droves.
We still do depend on weekly words, but sad to say our newspapers have grown smaller, and they are burdened with excessive, but much needed advertising for their revenue. Afternoon newspapers began to plunge as television grew and people could get their information faster watching the local news than reading a newspaper. If television was a blow, then the internet was the nail in the coffin as people want their news now– not tomorrow.
The editor of the old time newspaper was generally the reporter, compositor, press man and the whole business: cussed and discussed by the community and thrived on cord wood, pumpkins, potatoes, and other produce his subscribers had to spare for payment. Sometimes some irate citizen whom the editor had offended in his columns came in and pied the office, or dumped the newspapers into the street. But, in all seriousness, it’s the old time newspaper and the old time editor that kept us in the loop. Now, we have come to rely on our phones and other media devices way too much and what would happen if we no longer had them? This week I wrote a short story of what might become, so gather round the pickle barrel and read what could be.
Myrna woke up with a start and sensed a strange silence in the air. She quickly flipped on an electric switch and when the lights came on she breathed a sigh of relief. Dawn was just breaking so she went back to bed and pulled the comforter over her head. Something just did not feel right. As she rolled from side to side she wondered if she should just get up, have some coffee, and begin the day.
As the scent of coffee filled the air she pressed the “on” button on her computer and waited for the internet to come up. Twenty minutes later the screen still did not hold her Yahoo home page which she found quite odd. She flipped the TV on and found out the world was abuzz that the internet had suddenly disappeared overnight. It seems the TSA had shut the whole shebang down and what was once a daily ritual of information was going to resume in a few weeks as solely an interactive propaganda and information mining run by a Chinese filtering machine. It was no surprise, as in the last few weeks the net gates had gotten a little rickety and Google and Facebook went the way of MySpace.
Myrna had no landline, her smartphone was as useless as a drink coaster, and now as obsolete as a door stop. The androids that were run by Samsung with all their Google tidbits wired in had already died a slow death a month ago. Techies had said the bottlenecks were getting narrower and the thirteen main facilities that controlled the internet had their clusters of root servers taken down. Even the tier 1 providers like AT&T and Wireless no longer controlled anything, and now Twitter was something the birds did. She quickly got dressed and decided to go out and buy a newspaper. Immediately, she found out the world had changed overnight.
As she slowly scanned the newspaper she noticed words were spelled wrong as writers had to remember how to spell again without the benefit of red squiggly lines informing them of misspelt words. Those that had been addicted to the internet had suddenly become illiterate. Classified ads were three times their size due to the loss of Craigslist. Nigerians were placing ads informing readers of long lost relatives that had left millions of dollars to be claimed. Ebay had been replaced by upcoming flea markets and “Keyboard Cat” tribute photos were now all the rage, only in print.
As she slowly sipped her coffee there was a knock at the door. It was a door-to-door salesman selling hardbound volumes of “WIKIPEDIA: 2013 EDITION” and magazines were being delivered from her once favourite online shopping haunts. Tower Records was now going to reopen their stores with a door crasher special of all CDS for $99.99 each. Myrna wished she could have gotten all the music she wanted before they had pulled the plug, as now the human race was back in the stone age soon to wipe each other out. What was to become of them all now?
Epilogue
You can say what you want about the internet or the newspapers, but words could disappear in a moment’s notice. When Facebook went down last week, the world went wild. Now Tik Tok might change or disappear–the same with news being cut by CTV.
Ray Bradbury once quoted: “ I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back – or missed them.”
I for one would miss them.. Support your local newspaper
See you next week!
lindaseccaspina 