Brad Paisley Says Internet Is Taking Over Reality

Brad Paisley‘s relationship with the internet has taken a beating this past year, making the artist believe that the cyber world is blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.

“I feel sort of really aware of how the . . . online cyber world has begun to take over reality,” Paisley tells the Tennessean.

He may have used the internet as the inspiration for his 2007 hit ‘Online,’ but in 2013 it has dealt him a number of issues, including rumors that he was cheating on his wife with CMA co-host Carrie Underwood and a cyber beating over his song ‘Accidental Racist.’ Paisley says he hoped the song would start the healing process over race relations. The song didn’t raise any red flags prior to its release, but after it was released, Paisley began to see “the most negative things you could write about someone” online.

“It’s really an interesting mark about this brave new world we live in,” he says. “It is such a dichotomy, it’s crazy. I never had a single person say a thing like that, and the question becomes, ‘Where’s reality? Is it the people online who are writing these things that are horrifying? Or is reality the people who are standing there looking you in the eye and not saying anything?’

“It’s not reality, but it’s sort of getting to have its say a little bit here and there,” he continues. “It’s weird. It’s this short-attention-span theater that we live in now, and it feels like it has accelerated in ways this year that I’ve never seen it before.”

Despite Paisley’s negative feelings toward what has happened to him in the online community this year, he says that it has made him stronger.

“That kind of scrutiny and that kind of skin thickening can only happen once,” he says of the comments toward ‘Accidental Racist’. “I’ll never feel anything like that again, and that’s probably good because you can’t. No one can do that to me again because I probably won’t care about getting beat up. It’ll be like, ‘Eh, I’ve been beat up. That’s all right.’”

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