Wellcomm y'all. (BR)

Settle in for a bit, cause we've got some shit to discuss.

Because we're already five years into the third millenium and all these wonderful trappings of the information age, that we were promised would make us safer, saner and cleaner, are slowly being co-opted for use against us, to allow unseen entities to look over our shoulder at every moment and gradually press us into mental serfdom. Because the "independent" mass media asks only the initial question and accepts whatever lie it gets in response, just glad to have someone important to talk to. Because Ben Affleck's opinion was actually solicited during election season. Because the "independent" online media is now tripping over itself to gain acceptance from the mainstream, which considers it fringe and marginal at best.

We're expected to assume our questions answered. Poking and probing at the how and why of our world is intensely discouraged. But what makes it all work? Who holds it all together, and how? These sorts of queries seem antiquated, relics of the days of natural philosophers who didn't have Blackberries in the pockets of their pantaloons. Is it even worthwhile to muse about this stuff? If there were a critical flaw in the organization of all this chaos, would your knowledge of it make a difference, could you, or even a group of people, do anything about it?

After the Vietnam war, social scientists noted a sort of institutionalized apathy among the masses, particularly among younger Americans. This popular feeling that you're fucked no matter what you do by forces beyond your control has only been exacerbated since then, and most are perfectly happy to count themselves as informed after twenty minutes of CNN absorption. We have, so far, dropped the ball on the internet as a populist medium, but a lack of federal regulation, thanks to some sympathetic court rulings and its inherently amorphous and borderless nature, has suspended the web within the redemptive grasp of any forward thinkers capable of realizing its potential.

So here's Whippersnapp, an online news, commentary and discussion site aimed at reigniting a popular interest in the world at-large. The great Craig Savino and I are your chaperones, and we're putting it all on the table. Politics, music, sports, cinema, art, literature, philosophy, sociology, online culture, sex, ethics, technology, television, food, business, we fucking relish it all, the substantial and the superfluous, because it's part of a world that does really belong equally to all of us. We think that by reporting and then asking any and all questions that come to mind, we can attain and then distribute a truer understanding of what occurs on this crazy-ass planet.

With your help, we'll ask the unasked questions and cut the bullshit. Thank you and welcome and enjoy.