Is Matt Drudge the New Moses?
History is filled with hype; it is every era’s conceit to think that hype is its unique creation. But hype, or the creation of excitement and drawing of a crowd to that which doesn’t quite deserve it, is undergoing a unique transformation. Television diva Oprah Winfrey decries Jerry Springer’s obscenities; she boldly predicts it’s only a matter of time before live sex acts are put on TV. Oprah must be too busy counting her money to enter the computer age; live sex acts are now available 24 hours a day on my computer screen, which doesn’t seem very different from my TV screen these days. Has Oprah missed the hype of the World Wide Web? Southpark, the children’s vulgarityfest on the Comedy Central Network, has ratings to rival some broadcast television programs, thus obliterating the old distinction between the broad audiences of over-the-air television versus the supposedly tiny, narrow audiences of cable TV. New media rule: If you build it funny, vulgar, obscene, or interesting, hype w
