Tuesday Questions: Cranky Meme Edition
As far as I can tell, Scott Walker and Hillary Clinton must be immortals.
I say this because I can’t think of how many times that either has been “completely destroyed”, “utterly destroyed”, “totally destroyed”, etc. Yet they are still walking and breathing among us humans. So are many other people.
Sometime in the past year or so, social media has decided that destroyed no longer means defeating someone completely. Now it means “I will post something that I agree with and other people who agree with me will give me likes.”
I hate this.
So today’s cranky Tuesday question, what are your least favorite internet and social media language conventions?
I recall a few weeks ago someone posted a comment with a link to a Firefox extension that told the truth about click bait. This this: http://downworthy.snipe.net/Report
Social media: Glad a quit. Never looked back.Report
I find myself pushed to have an opinion on interactions between private citizens in other states above and beyond “what a jerkface”.Report
While I don’t disagree, the meme does have the benefit of clearly signaling that the poster has nothing to say. It is convenient not to have to actually look at the post to determine this.
This is somewhat like the principle of Salon articles, that any whose title has the first person pronoun, in any inflection, is well worth skipping.Report
The word “meme.”Report
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I like it, it’s a useful concept.
And there’s this arc of understanding from the insight of the original meme to stereotype to cliche that obscures insight that’s pretty fascinating.Report
[Insert the same rant Chris has been giving on memes for the last 15 years here.]Report
Play the meme game! Post one picture on 4chan’s /b/, and see it take off and develop an organic life of its own.Report
This may sound like an odd request, but would you mind reposting or linking to some form of that rant? Somehow, I’ve missed it, and I’m curious to see what have to say on the matter.Report
“Pro tip”Report
The idea of life hacks because life isn’t a video game where you can enter cheat codes and the tendency to turn everything into a list like “Five things you must know before you start to cohabitate with your significant other.”Report
The worst part is that the so-called hacks are usually of the quality of “if you have a problem with cats destroying your toilet paper, try mounting it so that the paper is rolled under rather than over!”Report
I actually saw a good one once. (Although it really falls under ‘Tiny useful bits of information that many people don’t know).
Which is, when you see the gas icon on your car dash? There’s a little arrow next to it that identifies what side of the car the gas tank is on. It’s part of the icon, and I never really noticed the arrow would point different directions in different cars (left or right). It was just the gas tank icon.Report
That is actually useful.Report
This is actually a lesson in how an attempt to be useful wasn’t, because NOBODY KNEW THIS prior to the lifehack meme that pointed it out…
… because the icon didn’t serve its actual purpose of transmitting information!Report
You know who knew this? Car rental agents. Well, at least at Enterprise. I know this because before the meme (ugh), they told me. It changed my (car renting) life.
It’s a good thing for people who rent cars to know, because you’re probably driving a model you’ve never driven before, and no one ever remembers to look for the tank until the moment they’re pulling into the gas station.Report
Huh, I always knew it. I was both surprised and horrified to find out that this was a life hack for most people.
What I can’t remember is whether I figured this out on my own (I am the sort of person who reads car owner manuals), or if someone, probably dear-old-dad, told me about it. I suspect the latter, since I can’t remember life before I knew this.
I did grow up in car country (Michigan)- maybe this is more commonly known there?Report
I once spent 20 minutes on a rental car trying to figure out where the switch was to open the gas latch.
I discovered that you open it by grabbing its edge and pulling it open.Report
Oh man, that’s the thing they never tell you!
There are some that are even more confusing, because you have to press them and they pop open. This means that there’s no gab in the edge to grab, so they look exactly like the latches that you have to switch open from inside the car.Report
The same thing happened to me the first time I borrowed my wife’s car. Not my fault: it has fancy controls for everything else.Report
I’ve seen several people pull up to gas pumps and pop the trunk.Report
Some people even do that sometimes in cars they’ve been driving for years. No one I know, of course.Report
That or using an old CD spindle as a bagel tote. Great, now what do I do with all the other 50 or so CD spindles I’ve owned over the years now that I have my bagel tote? And why can’t I stick my bagel in a little sandwich bag and carry it like I’ve always done?Report
the tendency to turn everything into a list like “Five things you must know before you start to cohabitate with your significant other.”
Dude.
There were seven things.
*SEVEN* of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now your cohabitation will be totally destroyed . . .Report
Protip – in that list of seven, don’t ask ‘what’s in the box?’Report
If Scott Walker and Hillary Clinton are immortal and both receive the Presidential nomination from their respective parties, can we call the 2016 Presidential Election the Clash of the Titans?Report
No, it must be…
wait for it…
The Quickening!Report
There can only be one.Report
I say we have THUNDER DOME!Report
Guys, please…can’t we all just get beyond Thunderdome?Report
What someone mentioned on these pages the other day about “X Myths about Y”, or alternatively “Everything You Know About Z is Wrong” – quite often, the myths are something nobody really believes anyway, and sometimes have never even risen to the level conventional wisdom.Report
This is related to my beef with “Fact-check” verdicts. The pinnochios and/or ratings are often determined by the strictness of the scrutiny and literalism they apply to it.Report
I disbelieve this myth.Report
@kolohe
That reminds me of the “You’re not so smart” site (I’m not sure it’s still around.) It had some pretty interesting (to me) stuff, but it’s arguments tended to fall into something like this:
A lot of people believe x is true.
We’ve found a study that shows x isn’t always true.
Therefore, x is never true.Report
The one that annoys me is Vox’s “Questions about X you were afraid to ask”. Most of the time they are just normal questions!Report
On a related note, John Oliver Literally Destroys Pinatas.Report
Piñatas are a threatened species in many parts of the U.S. due to aggressive hunting. A remarkably long open season has driven the piñata population to record lows in a number of habitats. Only by restraining the aberrant brutality enacted against piñatas by the voracious hunters will piñatas once again be restored to their former numbers.Report
But their innards are so tasty.Report
If god didn’t intend for us to eat Pinata’s, why did he fill them with candy?Report
And so incapable of escaping from a stupid little string tether.Report
You are falling prey to the appearance of intelligent design. Candy-filled piñatas are just a recent lucky mutation. Best not to speak of how things used to go with the old bee- and sewage-filled variants.Report
Everyone who knows anything knows that piñatas are not a natural species, but were in fact created in a lab by Big Dental, for obvious reasons.Report
oh great, another toother.Report
Mindless teethple.Report
Such incisive wit.Report
You’ve been studying the Schilling & Glyph, the Strunk & White of puns, haven’t you?Report
Pinatas and beer are a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy.Report
You’ve clearly never been an adult at a children’s party involving a piñatas. If you had been, you’d known that piñatas are a sign God wants adults to be struck repeatedly with broom handles.Report
I’ve heard that state officials down in Texas and Arizona are thinking of granting more Pinata hunting licenses to curb the increasing numbers, which have apparently become something of a nuisance in certain areas…Report
Twitter.Report
(This is how one would respond on Twitter.)Report
Happily I have never been on Twitter. You can’t spell twitter without spelling twitt.
Also I loathe #hashtag.Report
Shouldn’t it be twit?
#pedantReport
Very annoying: “(something) as fuck.”Report
“Seven Things That Only People Who Really Hate Buzzfeed Will Understand”Report
“Most people won’t share this post because they don’t care, so this should be a short experiment.”Report