'Call it the ExhibitioNet. [Samuelson wants to start with a bang, so he contrives this clever name for the exhibitionistic internet: ExhibitioNet. Only the name's not clever. Result: Inauspicious first sentence.] It turns out that the Internet has unleashed the greatest outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history. [The word - the concept - exhibitionism - is too broad for the use Samuelson seems to want to make of it here. As a writer who has written for decades about private as well as public matters in tons of different media, Samuelson is, by the vague measure he's about to offer, much more exhibitionistic than the people he attacks.] Everyone may not be entitled, as Andy Warhol once suggested, to 15 minutes of fame. [Lazy writer. The Warhol quotation is dead in the water, having been cited everywhere by everyone. And cast your eye to the end of Samuelson's essay: He'll also quote Thoreau on quiet desperation. Surpassing writerly sloth.] But everyone is entitled to strive for 15 minutes -- or 30, 90 or much more. We have blogs, "social networking" sites (MySpace.com, Facebook), YouTube and all their rivals. Everything about these sites is a scream for attention. Look at me. Listen to me. Laugh with me -- or at me. [Again, as a tireless promoter of his own experiences through decades of writing, Samuelson is hardly in a position to complain about other people. Unless, of course, he thinks he's better than other people, more deserving of air time. I'd be willing to consider his case for himself on this score, but he doesn't make it in this tossed-off plaint. Further, at no point in this opinion piece will Samuelson note that his traditional media -- judging by his bio, I'd guess he's in his sixties -- which are newspapers and magazines, are struggling to keep up with the new media he's describing as worthless and narcissistic. It would be more honest of him to mention the threat these new forms pose to writers like him rather than attacking them all as primal screams.]

This is no longer fringe behavior. MySpace has 56 million American "members." Facebook -- which started as a site for college students and has expanded to high school students and others -- has 9 million members. (For the unsavvy: MySpace and Facebook allow members to post personal pages with pictures and text.) About 12 million American adults (8 percent of Internet users) blog, estimates the Pew Internet & American Life Project. YouTube -- a site where anyone can post home videos -- says 100 million videos are watched daily.

Exhibitionism is now a big business. In 2005 Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought MySpace for a reported $580 million. [Newspapers like the ones Samuelson writes for are shrinking businesses. Why?] All these sites aim to make money, mainly through ads and fees. [This describes very few blogs. But then Samuelson is bundling all of these very different online forms of writing into one big nasty.] What's interesting culturally and politically is that their popularity contradicts the belief that people fear the Internet will violate their right to privacy. In reality, millions of Americans are gleefully discarding -- or at least cheerfully compromising -- their right to privacy. They're posting personal and intimate stuff in places where thousands or millions can see it. [Samuelson's details about his kids' college choices, which he recently wrote about in Newsweek, are in some way different from this.]

People seem to crave popularity or celebrity more than they fear the loss of privacy. Some of this extroversion is crass self-promotion. The Internet is a cheap way to advertise ideas and projects. Anyone can post a video on YouTube, free; you can start a blog free (some companies don't charge for "hosting" a site). Last week a popular series of videos -- Lonelygirl15 -- on YouTube was revealed to be a scripted drama, written by three aspiring filmmakers, and not a teenager's random meditations.

But the ExhibitioNet is more than a marketing tool. The same impulse that inspires people to spill their guts on "Jerry Springer" or to participate in "reality TV" shows (MTV's "The Real World" and its kin) has now found a mass outlet. MySpace aims at an 18-to-34-year-old audience; many of the pages are proudly raunchy. U.S. News & World Report recently described MySpace as "Lake Wobegon gone horribly wrong: a place where all the women are fast [and] the men are hard-drinking."

The blogosphere is often seen as mainly a political arena. That's a myth. According to the Pew estimates, most bloggers (37 percent) focus on "my life and personal experiences." Politics and government are a very distant second (11 percent), followed by entertainment (7 percent) and sports (6 percent). Even these figures may exaggerate the importance of politics. Half of bloggers say they're mainly interested in expressing themselves "creatively." [At this point in his piece, Samuelson looks like a resentful codger, anxiously dissing a new technology putting real political writers like himself out of business.]

Self-revelation and attitude are what seem to appeal. Heather Armstrong maintains one of the most popular personal blogs (Dooce.com). "I never had a cup of coffee until I was 23-years-old," she writes. "I had premarital sex for the first time at age 22, but BY GOD I waited an extra year for the coffee." She started her blog in 2001, got fired from her job as a Web designer in Los Angeles for writing about work ("My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID."), became "an unemployed drunk," got married and moved to Salt Lake City, where she had a child.

Armstrong is a graceful and often funny writer. ("I am no longer a practicing Mormon or someone who believes that Rush Limbaugh speaks to God. My family is understandably disappointed.") The popular site now has so many ads that her husband quit his job. Recent postings include an ode to her 2-year-old daughter, a story about her dog and a plug for her friend Maggie's book, "No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog." Idea No. 32: breaking up. Naturally, Armstrong expounds on her busted relationships.

Up to a point, the blogs and "social networking" sites represent new forms of electronic schmoozing -- extensions of e-mail and instant messaging. What's different is the undiluted passion for self-publicity. [Again, there's no way around the compromising position a writer like Samuelson, himself a self-promoter, has now put himself in.] But even among the devoted, there are occasional doubts about whether this is all upside. Facebook recently announced a new service. Its computers would regularly scan the pages of its members and flash news of the latest postings as headlines to their friends' pages. There was an uproar. Suppose your girlfriend decides she's had enough. The potential headline to your pals: "Susan dumps George." Countless students regarded the relentless electronic snooping and automatic messaging as threatening -- "stalking," as many put it. Facebook modified the service by allowing members to opt out.

The larger reality is that today's exhibitionism may last a lifetime. What goes on the Internet often stays on the Internet. Something that seems harmless, silly or merely impetuous today may seem offensive, stupid or reckless in two weeks, two years or two decades. Still, we are clearly at a special moment. Thoreau famously remarked that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Thanks to technology, that's no longer necessary. People can now lead lives of noisy and ostentatious desperation. Or at least they can try.' [All reasonable people agree that much of what goes on online is crude, self-serving, idiotic, and sometimes dangerous. But by throwing all screen activity into one smelly pot, and by assuming a condescending point of view, Samuelson has repelled readers looking for nuanced appraisals of new technologies and forms of expression.]

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