WU-mester Event: What if Shakespeare's Characters Had the Internet?

Remaining true to procrastinating-college-student form, I attended what I think was the very last WU-mester event of the semester: a panel discussion about social media and free speech featuring our very own Dr. Way! It was a very interesting discussion about how social media can and should be regulated concerning user privacy, harassment, and even extremist and/or criminal behavior. There were a lot of different points made about how Internet users and their data should be treated, but everyone concluded that there’s no obvious answer. Thankfully, Dr. Way contributed some uplifting points about how social media isn’t all bad and how Internet communities have created a sense of belonging for a lot of people. Overall though, most of the discussion focused on problems that have come up as consumers, business-owners, and legislators have tried to figure out what to do with this bewildering thing we call the Internet.

Personally, I have shied away from using most social media platforms. I still have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, but I rarely check them and make posts even less frequently. Sure, I enjoyed the connectedness the services offered, but I got bored of seeing so much content that meant very little to me or affected me negatively. That being said, after hearing about all the problems that have come about as a result of the ever-increasing presence social media has in people’s lives, I started to wonder what life would be like without these platforms. I started to wonder if we’d be better off without the Internet. Given the fact that I needed to somehow connect my thoughts about the panel to this class’s content, I let my imagination carry me all the way back to Shakespeare’s era. Ol’ Billy Shakes didn’t have social media to promote his new content and spread it all over the world in an instant, but things turned out okay for him! Of course, I’m pretty sure the average life-expectancy was a lot lower back then, and a lot of people were probably unhappy with how they were being treated… okay, obviously not everything was great about the Renaissance era. Still, I wonder if the Internet would have improved the quality of life for anyone around Shakespeare’s time…

Better yet, what if Shakespeare’s characters had access to the Internet?!

Ladies and gentlemen, I semi-proudly-but-mostly-timidly present:

THE SPRING 2019 EN 345 READING LIST BUT THE CHARACTERS IN THE PLAYS SOMEHOW HAVE THE INTERNET BUT NO OTHER MODERN TECHNOLOGIES (DON’T THINK ABOUT IT TOO HARD, I’M JUST TRYING MY BEST)

(Also, most of my knowledge about social media and Internet-culture is from a couple of years ago. Please forgive me if I make out-of-date references.)

PART 1 – HENRY V:

• The Dauphin roasts Henry on Twitter instead of sending him tennis balls.
• Henry live-streams all his motivational speeches.
• Henry creates a fake account to go undercover on r/commonsolider.
• Henry slides into Kate’s DMs; Google Translate doesn’t work very well.

PART 2 – THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

• Antonio has all his money tied up in Bitcoin, which obviously fails.
• Portia goes through all her suitors on Tinder, only matches with Bassanio.
• Shylock gets screwed over because he didn’t read the Terms and Conditions for ExecutingChristians.com.

PART 3 – MEASURE FOR MEASURE

• Angelo arrests everyone who visits porn sites, but he’s secretly a paid-subscriber.
• The Duke only uses Incognito tabs.
• Isabella speaks out against Angelo on Twitter, saving everyone a whole lot of time. (I mean, I hope people would believe her? A #MeToo or #TimesUp kind of deal, maybe?)
• The Duke tries to creep on Isabella, but she blocks him because who tf is that.

PART 4 – OTHELLO

• Iago is the worst Internet troll of all time.

PART 5 – THE WINTER’S TALE

• Leontes sub-Tweets about Hermione and Polixenes.
• Leontes deletes his account after he destroys his own family.
• The bear posts a picture of Antigonus on its Instagram (“#yum #foodie #organic”)

Obviously, there are so many other things that would change in Shakespeare’s plays if he gave his characters the Internet. I do want to point out, though, that my comment about Isabella posting about Angelo’s behavior would be a real benefit to the story, and it shows what I consider to be a great outcome of social media. Dirt bags like Angelo can’t get away with a lot of the crap they used to pull. Then again, the play even makes the point that not many people would believe Isabella if she spoke out against Angelo: he says, “Who will believe thee, Isabel?” (2.4.151). We talked in class how there’s still a lot of ignoring and blaming of victims today, but I still hope the Internet and the freedom to post the truth would benefit Isabella. Maybe she could post some screenshots of text conversations or recordings that she made, I don't know...

Anyway, the world is clearly still messed up, but I think that social media has helped bring some bad people to justice, and it’s given a voice to anyone with an Internet connection. That, I think, is a very good thing.