iranian protests

I've just fed into the media frenzy that is the Iranian elections and am emotionally shaken. If you visit Youtube's Citizen Tube, the experience is mind-bogglingly surreal. I feel disgraceful for not making myself aware of the complete insanity of these events sooner. Just watch the videos. It is live streaming history. Emphasis is placed here because of the completely unfiltered, unembellished, brutal reality brandishing itself across the internet. This is legitimate textbook history undergoing its legitimization instantaneously. Think about that for one solid minute. 

Even though there is fair warning on the more graphic videos, I highly advise taking extreme precaution before watching anything with blood, fire, or what has become the viral martyrdom of Neda Agha-Soltan (it can be found through basically any video titled 'Neda'). This was not produced on some studio backlot in Hollywood. In fact, take the most realistic movie death scene you can imagine and multiply it by one thousand. Because IT IS REAL. Watch it only to be grounded in the actual events of present moment Iran. It is quite possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed. The video documents an entirely innocent, beautiful woman's horrific death as recorded frame by frame onto a cell phone this past Saturday. A CELL PHONE? What? Really? It made me consider how the entire historical nature of these events is inherently causing them to become some sort of anti-history, hastily feeding reality into this bizarre, new alternate universe. Which, in turn, caused me to ask the question, can the internet be considered its own legitimate universe?

Watching the "Neda" video quite literally shocked me to my core. It released adrenaline and anxiousness on levels I have never even interpreted in my lifetime. It really put every present moment into context, and made it feel pretty worthless.