The Flap Over Flaps

I couldn’t open any of my news feeds without being inundated by all things Flappy. And then when the app came down — oh, my! Never have so many cried out about so little! If only they cared about stuff like, oh, I dunno, hunger, poverty, government overreach, jobs…

Let me say that I’ve a deep respect for Dong Nguyen. When he saw people being obsessive, he pulled down the game. Instead of raking in insane amounts of ad revenue, he did the right thing.

And he learned a hard, but valuable, lesson: Ignore the Internet. Things like Facebook, Twitter, etc, seem to bring out the absolute worst in people. Take people who would normally be voiceless, give them a medium to yell within, add a safe dose of distance and anonymity, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

There’s a reason why I disable comments all over the place. Out of a hundred of them, maybe — maybe, one is helpful. The rest are garbage. And disheartening. And just plain mean.

So, Mr. Nguyen, please keep coding. Just shut off all those “social” sites. Ignore them. And keep making stuff. It’s not your fault that so many people are social-psychopaths.