Stop Being Violent On The Internet

Hi internet readers. I know, it's been a long time since I've posted. It's just that I've been terribly busy (no I haven't.) So, today, I'm supposed to be writing my resume, but instead I'm doing 1000 other unimportant things.

Also, it's Remembrance Day. If you don't know, this is the day that Canadians pay respect to everyone who gave their lives for our freedoms and specifically to this post, our right to free speech. Which, of course, includes my right to blog about whatever I feel like AND to insist that everyone reads it.

Okay, so, there has been some controversy about a "white poppy movement." Here, read this COMPLETELY TERRIBLE ARTICLE by the Toronto Sun which is the worst newspaper ever and displays biases and generalizations like it's its job. Actually, don't read that article. Read this one, because it actually gives you real background information. Please keep your eyes out for the word "alongside." It's important.

So, I'm getting to the point, just hold your horsies. I don't personally have a really strong opinion about the white poppy one way or the other. I personally choose to wear a red one, even though it doesn't really seem like it because I usually lose my poppy within 4 minutes of putting it in my coat. I think I've gone through 6 of them so far. Buuut, my opinion on that isn't really relevant.

So, if you didn't read the articles that I told you to read because you don't do everything that the internet tells you to do, here is a quick rundown of some info that you'll need to understand the rest of this babble. Feel free to skip if you're familiar with the situation.

1. A group in Ottawa has been trying to bring back the white poppy which is supposed to represent peace and anti-war.
2. Many people have taken offence to this movement, saying that it is disrespectful to the veterans who fought to ensure our rights to free speech and free lives.
3. Apparently somewhere along the way someone claimed that the red poppy glorifies war.
4. The red poppy people have been rage tweeting/commenting/facebooking for like a full week about it.

Okay! So here FINALLY is what annoys me about this situation. I will write it in bold. Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean you can threaten to kick them in the face and wish shame upon their entire existence and the existence of their children and their children's children. Seriously, it's kind of funny, because you're trying to argue against the glorification of violence by threatening violence. Wait, what? That doesn't make sense! 

So, now let's apply this to the bigger picture, because that's how we make changes in the world, or something. (There's a piece of life advice there somewhere, I know it.) I'm going to use some more bold font. Why do we think we can say whatever terrible, rude, violent, mean thing we want on the internet? It's actually so dumb. Yes, it's much easier to say whatever you please when you don't have to look someone in the face or hear their reactions. Why do you think I love pizza places that let you order online so much? (Because I'm terrified of the phone.) But is it RIGHT to say whatever mean thing you want to say to a person? No, it is not right. So stop doing it. Unless it's directed at a celebrity, then it's fine.

There are so many other fun things you could be doing on the internet. If being a total a-hole in the comment section of a website is the most fun thing you can come up with, you should probably go talk to a therapist about your childhood. Maybe keep a journal beside your laptop and you can express yourself there. Surely if your opinion is important enough, whatever you write there will be published as part of your memoirs sometime in the future or it'll be discovered post-apocalypse and be interpreted as some sort of religious text.

So, come on everyone. The internet is a place to come together and share happiness, not to call people names and wish them the worst. Life is tough enough without trolls releasing their troll-sorcery and vexing our first born children.

What's Rock and Roll Anyway?

Anyone who has had anything to do with me on social media sites knew that this post was coming.

Whenever someone asks me what my favourite band is, I fully expect eye rolls and scoffing when I tell them that it's Fall Out Boy. Apparently it's "cool" to hate FOB. Or, it was.

But really, hating on Fall Out Boy is so 2008.

Or, it was.

Now, after a five year hiatus, the boys are back together and they have released a new album called Save Rock And Roll. Although, if you spend a lot of time in certain regions of the internet, you may be coerced into believing that they've sliced rock and roll's neck, thrown it in the back of a sedan and driven that sedan off a cliff instead of saving it.

Now, I can't be bothered with signing up for every website in order to argue against these buffoons who think they wrote the book on rock and roll and have a say in what is and isn't part of the genre. So, I've decided to write this.

This is a quote from a really good review of the new album on albsolutepunk.net:

"Elvis Presley was one quoted as saying, "Rock and Roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can't help but move to it." And while the internet will be plastered with reviews of this record taking issue with the band releasing an album that has the audacity to call itself Save Rock And Roll, the King already described every listen I've had with this album. I've worn out the soles in my shoes from tapping my foot so damn hard." - Jason Tate

I suggest you check out the whole review because, if nothing else, it's entertaining.

These guys are 30 years old. If they were still making pop-punk they would be a complete joke. (I'm talking to you, Jimmy Eat World. Sorry.) And as Jay-Z said, "N***** want my old s***, buy my old albums." Pop-punk is dying. And I hate to say it, because I love it. (I bought an old Brand New album not too long ago and jammed out to it hard. I don't know what the point of this factoid is. I think I just wanted to say "old Brand New album.") There's a time and place for pop-punk. And unfortunately 2013 is neither. However, if you really want it, there are still countless bands trying to make pop-punk happen, just do a quick search on iTunes.

And there's nothing wrong with changing your sound. In the same way that you don't listen to Barney and Friends' Greatest Hits anymore, your favourite bands may have had a change in their musical tastes. I think we can all understand and respect that.

Let's talk about Train in Vain by The Clash. That song was so punk rock, right? I'm really glad The Clash never strayed from their punk sound. It would have been just awful if they had decided to try their hand at a pop song. I'm sure it would have sounded terrible and never would have ranked #298 on The Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. (*shakes head*)

Or *pulls artists name from hat* Taylor Swift! She made a purely pop album but was still nominated for country music awards. And it was the pop music lovers who cut that album apart. Country fans ate it up, for the most part. Although, to be fair, I think country fans are a little more easy going when it comes to pop music than rock fans are.

But who cares about genres anyway? Why can't we just listen to a song and like it or dislike it? Why do we have to categorize it and rip it apart for not being part of a certain genre? Who cares!? A genre is a concept that was invented so we can easily discover new bands to like. There is no genre better than another. It's all relative to who you are and what sounds your ears like to hear. Some studies say that we like certain music based on our normal heart rate and other biological stuff. For example, I am generally not a fan of slow songs. Nothing against the artist or the art of writing a ballad. I just prefer a faster song. This makes sense if we take the heart rate theory into consideration.

And besides, these days there are too many subgenres and mixing of genres to even get a clear view of where bands belong. Why do bands have to belong anywhere? You're not the boss of them.

"Your old stuff was better" arguments aside, there are those who will always, no matter what, hate Fall Out Boy. "They're the worst band ever. They couldn't write a good song if it kicked them in the knee. Pete Wentz is a dick. Patrick used to be fat lol."

But it's funny, because somehow this terrible band has managed to sell out every single show on their comeback tour. Within hours of releasing the tickets. I would love to see all of these amateur internet critics take their s****y garage bands on tour and sell out a hole-in-the-wall pub, let alone any sizeable venue.

Even Nickelback, who, according to Twitter, is the worst band that ever existed, fills arenas every night. What's that about? Is it possible that they make music that certain people can relate to and enjoy? (I like Nickelback's old stuff. They're a bit repetitive though. They should take a page from FOB's book and change it up a bit. But of course, then everyone would hate them for changing. It's tough out there.)

But, at the end of the day, Fall Out Boy didn't make this album for you. They made it for themselves. They've made that unbelievably clear. They said it themselves, "It's what you love, not who loves you."

But why do I love Fall Out Boy? The simple answer might be that marrying Patrick Stump is my greatest desire. Oh, did you guys think it was about their music? (That was a joke. It is the music! It is!) Patrick has a way of writing hooks that I just can't get enough of. And Pete's lyrics are a mystery that I love to try to solve. But he never means what you think he means. And I can't even start about Patrick's voice because I don't know any words that mean "more beautiful than a thousand angels' whispers flowing over the strings of a violin." I really love him, okay!?

This morning, when I saw that the band had released the album early, I actually had a few tears. I don't cry about stuff. It was weird, to say the least. I don't like feelings. I worry about my actions when I see them live in a month and a half. However, this isn't a review of the album, so I'm only going to say that I've been listening to Rat A Tat (ft. Courtney Love) for I think two hours straight.

Wrapping this up now. I'm sorry if you're stuck in a land where only one genre is good enough. It's a lot more fun to live song-to-song. If you like it, then like it. If you don't then shut up.

"So, f*** you, you can go cry me an ocean and leave me be."

The album isn't out for real until April 16, but the band has released it on Soundcloud, so enjoy.
Save Rock And Roll

Love in the Modern Day

 I am a self-proclaimed cynic, if I am nothing else. And one of my most favourite things to be cynical about is love. Specifically romantic love. Love shared by family and friends, that stuff is beautiful. But romantic love? That's painful and temporary and really hasn't done me a lot of good personally. Mind you, there's still plenty of time for someone to come along and change my mind about this, but I have my doubts. Plus, I kind of just want to grow up and be Emily Dickinson.


(I did, at one point, want to grow up to be Liz Lemon but then she went and got married (to a human, not a meatball sub) and ruined that fantasy.)

There is actually only one couple in my group of acquaintances right now that I actively hope will stay together forever. Everyone else, I really couldn't care less. Perhaps this makes me a terrible person/friend. More than likely it just means that I'm lonely and hate other people's happiness. (I've never claimed to be a thoroughly good person.) My sincerest apologies if I hurt anyone's feelings by saying this, but it really shouldn't come as a surprise. The biggest surprise should be that there are actually two people that make me happy when I see them together. This disturbs me greatly.

With that confession out of the way, I'm going to make a sweeping declaration: The Internet has murdered love. Curb stomped it right to the point of cliched oblivion.

Not saying love can't happen. I've seen it before. Hell, I've felt it before (I think. Mostly my regret and frustration has blinded my memory of most of the good feelings. I think I might be a bit bitter.) but the only place that got me was weeks of hysterics and trying to guess that good-for-nothing bastard's Facebook password so I could sabotage him. (I was 16, leave me alone. Did I mention the bitterness?)

So what has the Internet done to love? It's given people this strange notion that they need to broadcast their love to everyone. It's like people need to prove that their love is the best love. Which all blows up in their face when their relationship status goes from "in a relationship" to "single."

The fact is, and I cannot stress this enough, NO ONE cares. Okay, maybe there are a few genuinely good people out there who want other people to be happy. But very few. You see, anyone who is in a relationship and happy will laugh at your "best relationship ever" status because clearly they have the best relationship ever so you're completely deluded, obviously. And anyone who is in a relationship and unhappy will envy you your apparent happiness but proceed to write about how great their relationship is because no one wants to admit their love is failing. And of course, single people hate on anyone in a relationship, regardless of how many "I love being single" captions they put on their selfies.

With that out of the way, I've made a list. (Yay! Lists!) This is a list of the most annoying things people in "love" do on the internet, in no particular order:

• Kissing Photo Shoots. Ugh. UGH. There are very few people in the world that look good while kissing. And it just makes me laugh when you think of like, whoever holding up a phone and being like, "Okay, time to kiss. Oh, just a sec, I'm holding my phone at a weird angle. Ahh, this thing is designed so awkwardly for taking pics with one hand. Okay, are you ready? Wait, fix your hair, you have an alfalfa. Okay, looks good. Ready? *click* Ahh, damn, I missed most of your face. Let's try again." Like, maybe a candid shot at a wedding is acceptable, but taking the pic yourself? Stop it.
• Facebook status: "Doing blah blah blah with the boy." The boy? Which boy? Does he have a name? This seems degrading to me. Do guys write, "the girl?" No, because that sounds like they don't respect her or some feminist nonsense. Don't assume that I know you're talking about your boyfriend. Use names to identify who you're talking about, because that's what names are for. But the worst part I think is the "the." It's like saying, "the dog," or, "the sandwich," or, "the lady at the counter who doesn't know how to order a latte." It just sounds rude and impersonal and a bunch of other stuff. I dunno.
• Random month anniversary announcements. Okay, so these are the monthiversaries that I deem worthy of celebrating: 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 60, continue at intervals of 12 months. See what I'm saying? You can publicly celebrate half years for the first two years but after that, please, puh-lease, keep it to yourself. Because we (we being the single people) don't want to be reminded at monthly intervals that someone as annoying as you has a significant other while we're stuck crying all over our cats and Fritos.
• Declaration (sweeping, at that) that you have the best boyfriend/girlfriend ever! You most likely do not. In fact, everyone is laughing at you because everyone except you knows that your boyfriend is being very suggestive towards other females and therefore is most likely not the best ever. Or something like that.
• Writing a status about going to the gym or something and ending it with "Love you so much Jimbo, you're my soulmate. You make me want to roll my windows down and cruise. <3" The f*** does that have to do with you going to the gym? And 14 other people just quoted that song in the last 25 minutes. Be original.

I recently had an experience where I liked a person. It was disgusting really. Couldn't concentrate on writing. Had a huge lapse in blogging/tweeting which resulted in who knows how many lost Twitter followers. I did not love this person. Not even close. I maybe could have though, eventually, and that's where the disappointment lies. I've since been cured of that nonsense, as you can tell by the almost daily blog posts that I've been pumping out. Cured maybe isn't the right description. It was more like a slap in the face by reality, telling me that love sucks and it's usually not going to work out. But I think I knew that already. 

The thing is, love is the best until it's not. You think everything is great and you'll be together forever and have little babies and then it just doesn't happen. And that's soul-crushing. 

This is basically a crude representation of what I dream about every night.

Really though, is having a guy beg for my affection, shower me with tasty, cheese-covered food gifts, and never talk to another girl again for as long as he lives too much to ask from a mate, seriously? It's like no one wants to work for love anymore. They just want it to be presented to them on a platter, all drizzled in chocolate and ready to cuddle and watch The Breakfast Club with you. (I'm included in this group of lazy lovers, although I'd prefer cheese sauce over chocolate.)

But as I said before, I am a cynic. And more than likely a few of you are reading this and think I'm a jealous idiot. Which is partially true, I won't deny it. But the people who think I'm an idiot are probably also the people who take kissing pics and think that they're going to be with their significant other forever even though they've only known them for five minutes.

Have a nice Post-Valentine's Day Day (notice that I waited to post my love-bashing until AFTER the celebration of love, so as not to be rude. Lol, just kidding, I tweeted a lot of love hating.) and laugh at the following Aziz Ansari quote that I stole from Pinterest. He knows what's up. (He's also ruining the sanctity of my blog with his not bleeped out f-bombs. I'm sorry.)

Yes, I Pay For My Music. I Also Pay For Chapstick, What's It To You? This Title Is Too Long.

Do not buy this album.
Go get a Cold Cut Combo instead.

The dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire life was buy Evan Taubenfeld's album. It's terrible. Quite possibly the worst album I've ever heard. "But, Alene, why did you buy this album? And who the h-e-double mozzarella sticks is Evan Taubenfeld?" I will tell you, dear readers.

Evan Taubenfeld is (was?) the guitarist for a little lady named Avril Lavigne. You may or may not have heard of her. When I was a youngster Avril was basically my favourite person ever. It was partially because we're basically from the same town, but also because her first album was completely legit, unlike the less-legit junk she spews out these days. (I'm sorry, but this is how I feel.) So, I knew everything about Avril's band and when I saw somewhat recently (last year? The year before?) that Evan had released an album, I thought, "Yeah, I'll support him. It can't be that bad. Here's my ten bucks." Like I said, dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. And one time I drank a cappuccino and an Amp energy drink within 15 minutes of each other and threw up for three days because of it.

The point of all this is that my main reason for purchasing this unfortunate album was to support the artist. Yes, I sacrificed the dollarly equivalent of a footlong sub to help this dude make more horrid music. In retrospect, I would really have preferred the sub. But this is how I look at it: This dude thought his tunes were good, and his mama is probably pretty proud of him. I say, "probably" because it's possible that this guy made an album that not even a mother could love. But clearly someone thought it was good enough to put on iTunes. (I'm sorry, this is a joke because I'm pretty sure there are albums on iTunes that are just the sounds of people pouring cold water onto a hot frying pan and painting their cats. If you want to know what a cat being painted sounds like, listen to any Downlink song.)

So, conclusions and some confessions of hypocrisy:

I pay for most of my music. The only real exception is like Taylor Swift and the Biebs, because they don't need financial help making music anymore. But when it comes to the less popular bands that I like to listen to, I always purchase on iTunes. Unless they're giving it away for free themselves, on purpose. Then I take full advantage.

This being said, I may or may not have on occasion MAYBE (this is NOT a confession of guilt. I refuse to say anything else without a lawyer present.) watched a film or two online without paying. But why is this any different? Without going into details because I don't want to reveal how little I know about the film industry, the short answer is, I feel like actors have it easier than musicians. Yeah, they starve themselves to fit roles and spend days covered in fake blood and dirt to make fun movies that we love to watch. But musicians tour all over the place and sleep in vans and starve themselves so they can afford to make one more single AND they're covered in dirt and blood because their moms never taught them how to do laundry before they went on tour. Maybe I'm wrong though (haha, that never happens) and actors are actually worse off. Also worthy of noting, if I had to give up either watching films or listening to music, I think I would pick films. (Because I REALLY only like going to the movies for the popcorn.)

Basically, don't be an a-hole. If you want your favourite artists to keep making music, you'll have to cough up some credit. (Because who buys real CDs with real money these days?)

Damn it, Dunham!

I don't know how many people caught the recent episode of HBO's Girls, or how many of you have given in to the madness surrounding the show (for the record, I started watching Girls BEFORE all the award business, so I was here first and the rest of you can stop crowding me on this wagon, okay?) For those of you who didn't watch, there are spoilers coming up so don't read any further!! (But feel free to share this post and like it and follow my blog and tell everyone about how I'm the best.)

In case any of you aren't watching Girls but for some reason have decided to continue reading, here's what happened last night:

Hannah (Dunham) got a new job writing for an internet site and decided to try cocaine with her gay ex-boyfriend/roommate Elijah so she would have something exciting to write about. Then they go to a club and la dee dah, Hannah ends up wearing nothing (NOTHING) but a mesh tank top and a really, truly terrible pair of shorts. Yeah... Then she galavants all over the city with everything ALL out and about, if you know what I'm saying and ends up making out with her creepy former-junkie downstairs neighbour. (The fact that Lena Dunham could make Hannah more awkward and naked than she already was blows my mind.) Other stuff happened too but it was mostly just your basic Marnie looking unimpressed about stuff, Shoshanna talking about losing her virginity and Jessa being hipster as f**k. 

What I'm trying to say here is, I feel that currently my daily life is not offering me a lot to write about. This is what I did today:

• Woke up at 12:00
• Stayed in bed until 2:45 watching Dexter
• Ate half a pop tart and some soda crackers at some point during the Dexter watching
• Put pants on
• Went pee, finally
• Watched an online lecture (yay, progress!)
• Ate real food (like, a real vegetable! My body was shocked.)
• Finished lecture on police selection and criminal profiling, googled serial killers for about an hour
• Watched Dexter

And here we are. No cocaine, no public nudity. Just a kind of disturbing amount of time spent on serial killers and some really bad eating habits.

That's my life right now, though. Dexter and crackers. And an above average enthusiasm for reading text books. I think it's because reading is easy and the longer I put off doing statistics homework, the longer I can avoid the involuntary eye twitch I get whenever I have to think about standard deviations. But it's also because I genuinely enjoy the stuff I'm learning right now (school doesn't suck ALL the time, kids!) But, I don't come in contact with a lot of stuff that inspires me to write.

This episode of Girls didn't bring me to this conclusion. I'm not like, "Oh my God, I need to have cocaine to write!" I wrote about socks once, for goodness sake. But it just made it painfully obvious that I've been being a tad boring lately. Which is sad, for me, because there are few things I enjoy doing as much as I enjoy writing.

So, what you should take away from all of this is that I've been having some pretty serious writer's block and I'm not really up for experimenting with drugs to fix it. You might even say I'm having serious life block, but we don't want to get too deep into like feelings and stuff because feelings are the worst. So, if I disappear for a while, don't worry. I'm not dead or locked in a basement somewhere. I'm just unblocking my life. (This only applies to my blog/Twitter presence. If you know me in real life and I disappear there, I AM PROBABLY LOCKED IN A BASEMENT OR BEING FED TO PIGS IN TINY PIECES GET HELP! Or I slept in again.)

Until then, this is where I'll be, taking frequent naps between classes, trips to Subway and textbook readings:

I Didn't Write A Christmas Blog Post (Until Now)

According to some search engine statistics sites which may or may not be completely inaccurate, people were doing a lot of searching for the terms "Merry Christmas" and "Christmas" in the past few days. So writing an* Xmas blog would have been the perfect way to get some serious search engine traffic (if you care about that sort of thing, which I don't even though I share my blog on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, Google+, etc.) But everyone and their cat was writing posts about Christmas. I say cat because dogs aren't smart enough or evil enough to commandeer our laptops at night, let's be serious.

So, writing a blog about how my Christmas went and what Santa brought me, etc. would be, in my opinion, beating a dead reindeer. (By the way, Santa brought me an Xbox and my brothers bought me Lego Lord of the Rings so I'm the happiest camper that ever camped in a warm trailer with electricity hook up and a big screen TV.) I started a post about my favourite Christmas things, including Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses, Love Actually and Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy's Christmas jumpers. But really, I felt like I wasn't actually in love with all of these things as much as I thought I was or as much as I used to be. (Except the candy cane kisses. Those things are amazing.)

So, here's the sad thing about Christmas at this stage in my life: I just don't really care about it that much. Whether this has something to do with the fact that my parents recently sent me an email trying to convince me that Santa isn't real (they just want credit for the amazing gift he brought for me) or because I'm extremely lazy and lifting my arm to hang crappy decorations made by kindergarten-age-Alene is just way too much work, I don't know. (Another side note - my family didn't have a tree at all this year and guess what? I got no unnecessary arm exercise because of it. All of my arm-energy went to lifting my fork during Christmas dinners. Win.) Maybe there's just so much other stuff happening right now that Christmas kind of gets overshadowed. Or maybe, Xmas just isn't actually as exciting the 20th time around.

I'm not saying that I don't like being with my family, because that's my favourite thing in the whole world. But, I believe that you shouldn't need excuses (like Christmas or raiding a closet to find the sweatpants your cousin stole from you) to see the people you love. And I'm not saying that I don't love watching people open the gifts I bought them, even if the smile on their face is completely fake because "Sweet Jolly Ranchers, ANOTHER candle, Alene, seriously?"

I didn't ask for anything this year (except for a KNOPE 2012 campaign poster which I did not receive. I'm gonna go drip my tears all over my new Xbox controller about it.) The only things I want out of Christmas are alcohol (got lots of that), a cheese ball (I saw one at dinner, but I don't know that anyone opened it, which is upsetting. Or they opened it and I didn't get any, which is even more upsetting.), some good laughs (check), and A KNOPE 2012 CAMPAIGN POSTER, MOM AND DAD! IT WAS ONLY LIKE $12 ON NBC.COM!

So, where am I going with this? And why have I started so many of my paragraphs with "So?" I feel like my English professor would be punching me in the back of the head if she were reading this over my shoulder right now. She also says that parenthesis are a waste of time but I like to interrupt myself a lot and sometimes dashes just don't format the way you want them to. Sorry, what was I talking about?

Christmas.

Does Christmas get old? Yeah, maybe. My mother says it starts to get interesting again once you have kids, so here's hoping Christmas remains boring for a few more years.

Some people love Christmas for the gifts, other people love it for the food. Because you can't buy and cook a turkey any other time of year (pause to let that sink in.) And I mean if you're really in need of a gravy fix there's always KFC. Except that I think every tsp of KFC gravy takes 2.4 minutes of your life. That's the secret ingredient in KFC chicken - human life force. Still tasty though.

I actually prefer Easter to Christmas, probably because there's a lot less snow and a lot more finding chocolate eggs in random places for the next week (or the next year, which HAS happened.) And Easter hasn't been completely taken over by consumerism and AMAZING deals on KNOPE 2012 CAMPAIGN POSTERS, MOM AND DAD! At least I don't think it has. I mean, every type of chocolate bar has now converted itself to egg form. But egg-shaped Hershey's cookies and cream chocolates are the greatest thing in the entire world so I'm not complaining. Okay, maybe Easter is selling out too, but in a more delicious way than Christmas.

So, (damn it!) let's conclude this babbling. Christmas is a time for giving, sharing, loving and smiling even though you didn't get the gift you wanted. And no matter how consumerized it gets, you just have to remember that Christmas is not defined by the gifts, or the money, or the digging your car out of the driveway so that you can get to dinner (that has nothing to do with consumerism except that why the hell don't we have a snow blower?) It's about sharing the love and opening the damn cheese ball.

*Grammar Side Note - Do you pronounce "Xmas" as "Christmas" or do you say, "ex-mas" because I have no idea and the pronunciation dictates whether or not I should have used "an" or "a." I pronounce it "ex-mas" so my fellow grammar nazis can leave me alone on this one, okay? Also, I think I have some major comma mistakes happening in this little footnote. My apologies. 

Internet Bandwagons, Scams and Bullying

I wrote a blog post a while ago regarding Invisible Children and Kony 2012 on one of my old Tumblr blogs (you can read it here if you'd like.) The point of the whole thing was my frustration with internet bandwagons. People support a cause because it's popular to support a cause, or people post whatever because that's what is popular right now. They don't think about it, they don't do any research, and often it's something they cared absolutely nothing about before.

Recently, a young girl committed suicide because she was being bullied over the internet. The video she posted on Youtube about a month ago was truly heartbreaking and gave everyone a lot to think about. Since then #RIPAmandaTodd has been trending on Twitter, and Facebook groups have been popping up everywhere to honour her memory.

Note: The rest of this post is in NO WAY meant to be disrespectful at all to anyone. It's only something I was thinking about.
Internet bullying has been around for a long time. We've all heard about it, some of us have taken part in it and some of us have been the victims. It's easy to bully people online. You don't have to look them in the eyes. You can think about everything you want to say or do beforehand. None of this is in real time. In fact, sometimes what goes on online doesn't even feel real. There's just enough disconnection from the bully and the victim that it's easy to avoid feeling guilty.
So I was thinking, why is it that only when stuff like this happens, when a girl posts a message on the internet before she kills herself, that we step up and say we need to end bullying?
There are countless stories like this. Kids being so bullied that they don't even want to be on earth anymore. And every time one of these stories ends up in the news, people say, "we need to do something about bullying." And this lasts for about a few weeks. Facebook groups pop up, people join them and then that's that. That's all you need to do to support something, right? Share it on Facebook and then go about your daily life.

And it's not just bullying. Let's look again at this whole Kony business. One of the crucial steps in the whole Kony 2012 plan was Cover The Night - basically running around and vandalizing stuff with Kony's name and picture. I don't believe I saw one Kony poster the day after Cover the Night, although I saw so many people on Facebook claim they would be "attending" the event. People just simply forgot about it. It was too far down the road from their initial viewing of the Kony 2012 video.

But that's the thing about the internet, isn't it? Everything is changing, all the time. There's too much information going in and coming out, you can't just concentrate on one thing, and you can't show support for everything. So we join groups, like statuses and retweet messages, hoping that that'll be enough. Someone else can do the hard stuff. Someone else can teach the anti-bullying classes and send money to the children of Uganda.

And I do this too. I'm not standing on any pedestal, wagging my finger at the world for not being better citizens. It's hard to be passionate about things these days.
Not only that, but it's hard to know what groups, or organizations or sad stories are for real. There are so many internet scams created everyday. People make up sad stories and attach an unsettling photo from Google so that they can have their photo shared thousands of times.

So when things like youth suicide happen, and when the entire world knows about it, it's hard to not join the "bandwagon" isn't it? You want to seem sensitive and so you like RIP Amanda Todd on Facebook and you retweet some stuff about her.
But then you actually read some of the things on the group's wall and there are people being disrespectful there. Saying that the people who bullied her should "go die."
And all I can think is, "did you all completely miss the point?" Why did you join a group remembering a girl who wants to stop bullying, if you're just going to be rude and disrespectful (a bully) while you're there? Just because the person you're bullying is a bully, doesn't mean that what you're doing is okay.

I'm not against supporting causes, or joining groups. I'm against the complete lack of thinking that you see on the internet every day. And it's not anyone's fault necessarily. Like I said, the information being thrown at us every day is astounding. Processing it all is more work than most people even realize and so I guess it's understandable that maybe you post things without thinking, or like groups without understanding what they're all about.

In closing, all of my blabbering about bandwagons and scams aside, I hope we never have to see another news story like this. I know, bullying is something that will probably never truly go away. But we can change things and hopefully this is truly the push we need to do it. Bullying awareness is something that I always remember being a part of education (did anyone else learn the warm fuzzies cold pricklies story?) but maybe it takes a story like this one to really make it sink in.

Marilyn Monroe Didn't Even Say That Stuff

Okay, so if you're an internet using person (which I assume you are because you're reading this), you've seen all the ... I don't even know what to call them ... posters? all over the place. You know them, they're quotes posted on a nice little background. Some of them are funny, some of them are inspiring and all of them are stupid (according to me.) "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I think those things are totally neat!" you're probably saying to your computer screen right now. On some level I agree with you, they're nice the first time you see them. But once they get shared a billion times on Facebook and Tumblr and copied to statuses and tweeted and instagramed (myspaced? Google+ed?,) this is when they get terrible and annoying.

But I can ignore the little poster things, some of them are pretty hilarious. But I can't help but think, "okay, who actually said this?" So, being the professional Googler that I am, I like to Google these sayings. And guess what? Apparently about a thousand different people are credited with saying some of this stuff. Wait, what? Yeah, imagine that. The internet, the world's largest "grapevine," has reposted and skewed these things so many times that no one even knows who said half of them anymore. I believe you people are familiar with the game Telephone?

Let's take the beloved Marilyn Monroe for example. According to girl's tweets and statuses everywhere, she has said some totally awesome stuff. And some of it may have actually come out of her mouth, but upon further investigation, most of it did not. Sorry to squish your beliefs ladies. (Side note: MM wasn't even a size 16, apparently. Of course, this info could also be fake.)

I know we'll never live in a world where we only quote things that we actually heard come out of someone's mouth, but think about how nice it would be, for the sake of the actual speaker. Am I right?
Maybe I'm just a little grumpy because I spend tons of time thinking up my own interesting (maybe) stuff to put on the internet while other people just spend their time sharing fake quotes that they claim are "totally the story of my life," or whatever (This is exactly the reason I'm writing this, don't let anything else I say fool you), or maybe I'm just worried about plagiarism and the rights of the author but either way, I've had enough of this unoriginal crap that is spewed all over the place without a thought for who said it, where they said it, what the context was, and if they were really talking about what you think they were talking about. (And that, my friends, was a run-on sentence.)

So, to sum this all up, let's all try to be a little more original, okay? Or at least appreciate the stuff the little people (me) have to say on the internet, because they're (I'm) trying their (my) best to entertain you with their (my) brilliant minds. And for the love of goodness, please stop quoting "Marilyn Monroe" and just appreciate her for being super hot or something.

A Word On Twitter

Okay, since Twitter is probably the reason I'm here, I think it's fitting that Twitter be the topic of my first (real) post. So anyone who follows me on Twitter probably knows that I've become involved in a certain evil cult-site (this is just a theory I have, I guess we'll find out if some hooded figures bring us glasses of punch someday,) Favstar. "What's Favstar?" you may ask. Well, I'm not here to explain that stuff to you. Google it, but don't get hooked. Honestly, Favstar is the best/worst thing ever. Yeah, it gets your stuff out there, and it gives you way more stars and retweets than you probably deserve. What do I mean? I mean everyone involved with Favstar is completely addicted to starring and RTing, so really, a star doesn't mean very much anymore. But wait, stars are what you base your life on now. If your tweet doesn't get stars after four minutes, you're already in your back yard digging a hole that you can go rot in for the rest of your life because obviously you're worthless. Okay, once you pull yourself together, then you start starring like mad, partially because you like a lot of the people you follow, and they're pretty funny. But let's not kid ourselves, you're actually just trying to get attention and hopefully they'll star you back. So now you're totally obsessed and you have no friends anymore and in some cases (specifically in my case, because I use my real name on Twitter) your remaining friends basically think you're a crazy loser now (or something, I don't really care.) Besides the terrible addictive aspect of Twitter and her evil cousin Favstar, tweeting is actually one of my favourite things (If you think that's lame, it's because it sort of is, in a way.) There is no other way that I could possibly communicate with so many cool people all over the world (whether or not everything they say on Twitter is true, which it probably isn't.) So, that's why I'm always on Twitter, Mom. Oh, and I kinda feel like I'm famous (just kidding.) (Not kidding.)




So, what am I actually saying here? Follow me. Did you expect anything else?