最新版大学英语长篇阅读教程下.doc

PAGE PAGE 3 Unit 11 The Dark Side of Internet Fame Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. In the age of Google and YouTube, public shaming can turn anybody into a celebrity — or a fool. In 2002, Ghyslain Raza, a chubby Canadian teen, filmed himself?acting out a fight scene from “Star Wars”?using a makeshift light saber. His awkward performance was funny, in part because it wasn’t meant to be. And it certainly was never meant to be public: for nearly a year the video remained on a shelf in Raza’s school’s TV studio, where he’d filmed it. Sometime in 2003, though, another student discovered the video, digitized it and posted it online — and Raza’s nightmare began. Within days, “Star Wars Kid” had become a viral frenzy. It was posted on hundreds of blogs, enhanced by music and special effects, and watched by millions. Entire websites were dedicated to the subject; one,? HYPERLINK / \t _blank , was even named one of Time’s 50 best sites of 2003. Had that teenager wanted to be famous, he couldn’t have asked for anything better. But in Raza’s case it became a source of public humiliation, precisely what every kid fears the most. Razas of the world take note: among the generation that’s been reared online, stories like this are becoming more and more common. They serve as important reminders of a dark side of instant Internet fame: humiliation. Already dozens of websites exist solely to help those who would shame others. There are sites for posting hateful rants about ex-lovers ( HYPERLINK /home/ \t _blank DontDateHimG) and bad tippers (the Shitty Tipper Database), and for posting cell-phone images of public bad behavior ( HYPERLINK / \t _blank hollabackNYC.com) and lousy drivers. As a new book makes clear in powerful terms, such sites can ma