5 Internet Pet Peeves
BiserSchap
Published
01/03/2011
1. You Tube's latest setup has it so the highest rated comments are the first two visible on the board. I frequently search for music, and usually look for classic rock, 90's grunge, 80's metal/pop etc. It seems like every highest-rated comment is "I'm 12 years old, and I love this music. Today's music sucks! Kill Justin Bieber!" I guess this annoys me for several reasons.
A. It makes me feel old.
B. I'm annoyed by thumb-up whores.
C. Good for you. You recognize today's music sucks. Any more breaking news you care to share? Oh, the sky is blue too?
D. It makes me uneasy to see little kids so freely sharing their age over the internet. Think "Cartman Joins N.A.M.B.L.A."
E. I'm not a fan of Justin Bieber, but I have heard some of his stuff and seen him perform, and the kid's got some talent. If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
2. Annoying status updates on Facebook. There's so many ways to qualify in this category. From the overly-negative to the overly-descriptive, to my white friends rattling off their plans for Thanksgiving in Ebonics, to someone that's just gone through a breakup leaving passive aggressive comments about their ex for all of their mutual friends to read, it's a wide-spanning category. While I do appreciate people trying to give their friends a laugh by leaving creatively structured updates, I swear an old friend of mine has used the following formula at least once a week for the past eighteen months:
"Dear Inanimate Object
Story about how you were the cause of a minor inconvenience during the course of my day. You suck. Just sayin'.
Love,
Acquaintance From Middle School Social Studies Class"
3. Feature trolls. Leave a comment on the top featured item at this site that actually relates to it, and you can expect 19 notifications to immediately show up in your inbox to tell you you've just been insulted at random by guys with names like "VomitRecycler" and "IDiddle8YearOlds" with animated avatars that would make a porn star blush. That's why if I see a particularly funny post, I'll always look for it's equivalent on some other site before forwarding it to Grandma.
4. Hipster profiles. Whether they're on Myspace or Facebook, there seems to be an underground competition to see who can name the most bands and movies that no one's ever heard of before. I usually stumble onto these because I went to art school, which means I'm usually in the same networks as these people. Even if you don't know who the person is, it's pretty easy to spot a hipster, because nine times out of ten their profile picture is of them in their ironic Halloween costume.
5. Google's gradual collection of all of my private information. A few months back, I noticed if I logged out of my Gmail account, I'd also automatically be logged out of my You Tube account, and vice-versa. Great. So now not only do they have access to all of my email and know all of the random searches I've conducted, from the mundane to the embarrassing, they now have on file all of the videos I've watched, favorited and rated. I'm not so full of myself that I'd think that anyone on Google's staff would take the time to look at my history out of all the other billions, but still...Makes you start to think Orwellian thoughts...And I think I just made that word up....
A. It makes me feel old.
B. I'm annoyed by thumb-up whores.
C. Good for you. You recognize today's music sucks. Any more breaking news you care to share? Oh, the sky is blue too?
D. It makes me uneasy to see little kids so freely sharing their age over the internet. Think "Cartman Joins N.A.M.B.L.A."
E. I'm not a fan of Justin Bieber, but I have heard some of his stuff and seen him perform, and the kid's got some talent. If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
2. Annoying status updates on Facebook. There's so many ways to qualify in this category. From the overly-negative to the overly-descriptive, to my white friends rattling off their plans for Thanksgiving in Ebonics, to someone that's just gone through a breakup leaving passive aggressive comments about their ex for all of their mutual friends to read, it's a wide-spanning category. While I do appreciate people trying to give their friends a laugh by leaving creatively structured updates, I swear an old friend of mine has used the following formula at least once a week for the past eighteen months:
"Dear Inanimate Object
Story about how you were the cause of a minor inconvenience during the course of my day. You suck. Just sayin'.
Love,
Acquaintance From Middle School Social Studies Class"
3. Feature trolls. Leave a comment on the top featured item at this site that actually relates to it, and you can expect 19 notifications to immediately show up in your inbox to tell you you've just been insulted at random by guys with names like "VomitRecycler" and "IDiddle8YearOlds" with animated avatars that would make a porn star blush. That's why if I see a particularly funny post, I'll always look for it's equivalent on some other site before forwarding it to Grandma.
4. Hipster profiles. Whether they're on Myspace or Facebook, there seems to be an underground competition to see who can name the most bands and movies that no one's ever heard of before. I usually stumble onto these because I went to art school, which means I'm usually in the same networks as these people. Even if you don't know who the person is, it's pretty easy to spot a hipster, because nine times out of ten their profile picture is of them in their ironic Halloween costume.
5. Google's gradual collection of all of my private information. A few months back, I noticed if I logged out of my Gmail account, I'd also automatically be logged out of my You Tube account, and vice-versa. Great. So now not only do they have access to all of my email and know all of the random searches I've conducted, from the mundane to the embarrassing, they now have on file all of the videos I've watched, favorited and rated. I'm not so full of myself that I'd think that anyone on Google's staff would take the time to look at my history out of all the other billions, but still...Makes you start to think Orwellian thoughts...And I think I just made that word up....
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