That little line spared me of having to stand on top of my desk many a session. [break]
But, that was 1999. Now, over a decade later, things are different. So different that we are gathered here today to mourn the death of “I don’t know”. The famous last words of the last millennium. You see, back then you were allowed to not know. Everyone didn’t have a Google-certified PhD in every known and unknown topic to mankind.
If you were talking to someone and they casually refer to some obscure people group that inhabited a corner of the Amazon forest four hundred years ago, you were by all means permitted to ask, “What?” Or, if someone mentioned the recent of most recent discoveries wherein man had found means through which to communicate with say, erm, snails, you could express your bewilderment and ask, “What?!” (Probably followed by a “Why?”). Or, if your employer suggested that you re-examine the words of some big famous guy whom you’d never heard of, you could say “Who?”
And so the list goes.
Alas, the list went (ahem, in the past tense). Post the invasion masterminded Google, which occurred just a tad bit before the invasion of Iraq, no one is spared of the lash if they don’t know whatever impressive detail anyone is attempting to speak of in a loud voice and frequent nature.
Of course, they want us to ask “What?” so as to acknowledge their superiority. But now if you do, not only will they be looking smug that they know more but they’ll also make you feel about two inches tall as they feign their surprise and say, “Oh, you haven’t heard?” YES I HAVEN’T HEARD, I for one have a life outside the world wide web and inside my head!
The truth is we have it worse than the Renaissance man. If he were to have his toes dipped into sport, music, art and academia, he had only to be able to get by. But we have to experts on all things important and trivial.
This point was driven home when the other day on Gchat I had the humility (?), stupidity (?) and/or lack of real interest (ding ding ding!) to ask a friend what he was going on about. All I was half-reading when fully-distracted by status updates on Facebook were him referring to Jindabaad’s new album and something about the cover where Dharahara is either being blown up or shooting like a rocket.
The word ‘rocket’ in the same sentence as ‘blown up’ caught my attention so I asked him what Jindabaad was. At the time I’d failed to have carefully read “new album” and had yet to learn that Jindabaad was Nepal’s favorite band these days. (Apologies for being not so hip when it comes to music. I am still stuck in the world of 90s music (MLTR anyone?) and when it comes to adhunik Nepali geet haru, I always play Nabin Bhattarai and Sugam Pokharel). Maybe just a tiny bit annoyed at my obvious inability to discuss the new album cover when I hadn’t even heard of the band so he politely offered to explain. He typed “let me Google that for you” and I said “cool”.
Little did I know I was being snubbed.
The little jerk then sent me a link. When I clicked on it, it opened up into Google search and automatically typed out “Jindabaad new album + Dharara” and the mouse clicked search on its own. It then Google searched and a little message popped up along with the search results that read, “That wasn’t so hard was it?” Turns out the joke was on me.
Of course I’d just been made fun of, but the nifty little site was, well, so nifty that I “lol-ed” and DIDN’T ask what that was. I just went on the site again and read the URL: www.lmgtfy.com. At first, I thought what would LMGTFY possibly mean and then I (yes, so so slowly) realized it was an acronym: Let Me Google That For You.
Some smart alec out there had designed this little site to warn mere mortals like us that we indeed needed to know everything and that when we didn’t, we shouldn’t ask because Google and Wikipedia have banned us from not having Googles and Wikipedia-ed on EVERY.LITTLE.THING.TILL.DATE.
And, I suppose that’s the end of the current seventh grade German class in my alma mater being excused when they say, “Ich weiss es nicht”.
(Nepaliketi is a KTM-based blogger at www.nepaliketi.net who still is not sure whether the new cover of Jindabaad is blowing up or shooting a rocket off of Dharahara.)
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