I’m all excited about the end of the Bush Administration, as I’m sure everyone except for comedians are. (Actually, I guess I’m pretty bummed about this, too.) But there is another source of nearly limitless amusement that won’t be leaving us anytime soon: The Internet!
The Internet, too, has the added bonus of not being able to start wars. Or, perhaps, do anything: Barack Obama’s Change.gov, which allowed citizens — actual people, like you and me! — to submit ideas to the president before the new election. As one might have expected, the ideas have been pretty much what people who spend a ton of time on the Internet (i.e., upper middle class kids) care about.
The top vote-getter in the first round of voting was marijuana legalization. Obama responded with a one-sentence reply that he was not in favor of it. Considering before the election Obama couldn’t even really come out against >baggy pants laws, this isn’t much of a surprise1.
Mr. President – Tell us the Truth about the extraterrestrial presence on this planet and release as much relevant information to the American people as possible within reasonable constraints of national security. It is time for the people of the world to know the truth about the universe they inhabit. [...] Until this “Truth Embargo” is ended there will be no public access to technologies derived from extraterrestrial vehicles in this critical time of mounting economic and environmental challenges.
And there’s this one, which is my favorite:
Fortunately, the online populace is just not that into hanging all white people. Phew! I can rest easy. I think I’ll relax by playing some online poker.
1 I linked that New York Post story because it had the headline I was looking for; however, Googling Obama baggy pants laws gives a bunch of stories with widely conflicting headlines. Most, though, say Obama denounced baggy pants laws. Yes, Obama said that baggy (sagging? saggy?) pants laws were a waste of time, but spent most of his answer telling black men to dress better. “Brothers should pull up their pants,” Obama said. “Now get off my lawn! And it’s the White House lawn, too, so what the hell, how did you kids even get in here anyway?” He didn’t say those last two sentences. I kind of felt they were implied.
If you watched either the Phillies or the Eagles yesterday, you might’ve seen this promo a couple of times. (There’s also one that says “ACTION NEWS. OR NEWS WITH ACTION.“)
Ho, ho, Fox 29! That’s the kind of underdog attitude that could make it in this town. But I wonder if advertising news on demand really works in 2008; I, for one, already know I can get news immediately on the Internet. Don’t most people?
Also shown during the Phillies game last night: Former Eagles defensive end/Ambassador of Fun Hugh Douglas wishing the Phillies good luck. I can’t believe the station’s Phillies slogan is actually, “Way to go.”
Tobaccoland notes the paper also wrote, “Four cocaine cockroaches crawling with heavy charges.” (The paper also writes that the drug dealing will stop now that people have been arrested for it. I can’t believe how many people think this.) There’s also this editorial, that says if some dude hadn’t dealt drugs, he could have been president, like Barack Obama.
Zeno of Elea, Socrates and Jesus, Weev said, are his all-time favorite trolls.
There’s also a character who shouts racial slurs at white people on the street! The article’s actually pretty interesting, though it is still a long story about the Internet. But at least it wasn’t the one from the previous week about how we should try to lose the war in Afghanistan just so we can say we were tough on drugs.
Silveri asked what he would be allowed to do with the children and if there would be “limits.”
“Im not into any really weird stuff,” he allegedly wrote, “like crapping on someone or cutting them or that sort of stuff.”
Well, that’s a relief, at least. Oh, yeah, Albert Silveri III was arrested. He had smartly allegedly used his state-issued laptop to talk with fake little girls online, too!
The other night, Yelp — a trendy Web. 2.0 review site — held an event at the Mexican Post near Love Park for its “Elite” users, a group no doubt infinitely cooler than me and my regular user status.
This was a dumb move, because Mexican Post sucks. And, as such, Mexican Post has now received a ton of angry reviews on Yelp from people at the event.
Their complaints, though, weren’t limited to the regular shittiness of Mexican Post. No, the main complaints from users were that Yelp users weren’t given enough free stuff. Oh, man, how dare they! The comments range from “What a way to fuck yourself in the ass MP” to “we were expecting to be lavished as most *ahem* ALL host-places do” to “I got two chicken wings. That’s it.” Most of the posts were at roughly the same level of seriousness you’d use for a doctoral dissertation.
Of course, people love to complain with a ridiculous amount of seriousness (especially on the Internet). And there’s nothing wrong with complaining about shitty free food and drinks. But this Yelp user sort of sums up the whole idea of a review site holding events at bars (naturally, it’s in the form of an Internet meme, itself from a cartoon to begin with):
the deal is simple:
Step 1: Mexican Post, you give us lots and lots of your food and alcohol for one night.
Step 2: If the food, drink, and atmosphere are amazing, we will return the favor with lots and lots of equally amazing reviews.
Step 3: Profit and / or world domination for you. Hangover for us.
You blew it, Mexican Post, you blew it.
If you give Yelp free drinks and promotion, you get great reviews on the site. While Mexican Post is certainly stupid for giving bad service to people who were going to go on the Internet afterwards and complain about it, it’s … oh, hell, I’m dangerously close to making a direct point here, and it’s as stupid and obvious as “don’t trust people on the Internet, especially ones who get free shit to write positive reviews.” I’ll stop. Sorry.
Side note: The Yelp post has a Chrissmari sighting!
Semi-related note: If you enjoy awful blogs, hilarious commenters on the Internet and more of the dead seriousness you can only get from people online, be sure to check out this comment thread on BoingBoing. There is so much hilarity involved in it I feel bad having to pick just one awesome comment: “This is a really interesting situation. It reminds me of the Judith Miller portion of the Plame Affair.”
Ah, yeah, the current Philly.com front is the kind of thing that gets put into museums of pure awesomeness. It was great when I woke up this morning, but since then it’s only gotten about 100 times better. My personal favorite part came when I realized that none of these people pictured are even all that remotely famous, but the new photo arrangement is completely amazing, too.
A friend and reader chimes in: “I think getting Kidd Chris’ thoughts on the whole ordeal puts it over the top. There are just so many layers. It’s getting to the point where I no longer think, ‘Oh, the paper i once loved,’ and instead think ‘Well, this is pretty hilarious.’”
I had heard a while back about ads funded by readers of some liberal blogs running against Democratic Rep. Chris Carney of Pennsylvania. I didn’t know until today how awesome they were. Ha ha, Monopoly photoshops and scary voiceovers about Bush and Cheney. I think I can safely say any increased influence of the Internet on politics is going to be great.
I’m all excited about the end of the Bush Administration, as I’m sure everyone except for comedians are. (Actually, I guess I’m pretty bummed about this, too.) But there is another source of nearly limitless amusement that won’t be leaving us anytime soon: The Internet!
