April 28, 2012 by Taylor

Things That Bother Me: Social Networking Edition

Good morning, readers. Unless it is another time of day wherever you are, whenever you’re reading this. In which case, insert the time of day where “morning” is. There we go. Perfect.

I’m in the midst of writing a RIVETING* research paper about George McClellan at the moment and cannot find time for much, which is why I’m writing this on Friday night in the hopes that I’ll remember to post it tomorrow morning. That being said, I couldn’t bear the thought of doing two LazyPosts in a row, so I’m going to post about things I dislike about the Internet/social networking sites.

People who promise ridiculous amounts of friend requests. This has been cropping up on Facebook a lot lately. It’s usually in the form of a comment on a page’s picture or post and has the following format: Want 1000 Friend requests?!1 Add me [insert link to profile here] <—– then LIKE this COMMENT n watch your friend Requests EXPLODE!!!11!!** Other than these probably just being spam or a horrid attempt at getting subscribers to someone’s page, why would anyone want to do this?! I mean, I certainly don’t want 1000 people I don’t know flocking to my requests inbox, and I don’t know why anyone else would. It’s just plain weird.
Memes that have outlived their expiration dates. I realize it was hilarious two years ago to put a troll face on everything and call it a day, but come on. Enough already. It’s over. There does come a time when there are literally no new situations you can put them in and have it still be funny. Let the younger memes have their time in the spotlight.
Any kind of “sub for sub” deal. The idea is that someone puts out a “sub for sub” promotion involving their blog, YouTube channel, et cetera, wherein any subscribers will automatically get a subscription from that person. I honestly don’t see why anyone would want to do this. I mean, sure, you get more subscribers, but does that really mean anything if no one ever looks at your content? Numbers mean nothing; it’s engagement that counts.
People who comment on YouTube videos promoting their own channel. I’m on YouTube a lot, readers, and I see this all the time. YouTubers who aren’t well known will put a comment on any video basically begging people to come see their channel. Not only does this never work (at least on me), it makes me think that maybe these people aren’t confident in their work.
Comments on a video consisting of nothing more than an insult or slur. I’m not going to repeat anything here, but I’m sure if you spend any time scrolling through comments of popular videos you’ll see them. These are people who come across a video randomly, watch about (by my estimate) thirty seconds, and then decide that they don’t like the YouTuber. So what do they do? They leave a one- to five-word comment simply insulting the person or video. Really, guys? Is this the best you can do?*** Can’t you at least have an intelligent argument handy as to why you don’t like the video? This would be a classic case of if you don’t have anything decent to say, hands off the keyboard.

Well, that’s about it for me. I’m sure the first four things work for some people, but I really don’t see the point or benefit in any of them. As to the last one, well, that should never happen.

This post was partially inspired by recent encounters on Facebook and partially by Louis Foulkes, one of my new favorite vloggers. Here’s a video in which he talks about similarly annoying things in the social networking world:

Happy reading.

*The Caps Lock means I’m being sarcastic.

**See, you can tell how sincere the person is because of how much they forgot to hold down the shift key.

***Also newsflash: “nerd” is not an insult. If you’re having trouble, I would recommend Shakespeare.

March 4, 2012 by Taylor

Citizen: Part 3

By now, all of you probably know the deal here. If you missed previous episodes of this series, you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Okay. Let’s do this thing.

(Oh, and if you’re new, I’m doing this short story thing once a week. So yeah.)

Oh, but before I go on, I have a little announcement to make. A dear friend of mine has just started a blog at this site. She’s really an awesome person and she’s the one who read this story first. Trust me, you’ll want to hear what she has to say. So go there!

Okay, back to the story.

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February 26, 2012 by Taylor

Citizen: Part 2

(cue intro music)

Last week, on Citizen:

(cue montage of critical scenes [a.k.a. here’s part 1 in case you missed it and have absolutely no idea what’s going on])

This week, tune in as our protagonist finds out what lies beyond her door! Which doesn’t sound sinister enough at all! But still!

(cue teaser scenes)

(cue theme song/title screen/transition)

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February 19, 2012 by Taylor

Citizen: Part 1

This is the beginning of that short story I wrote for a recent contest run through Scholastic (I’m still waiting on the results front). I figured I’d share it on here, since I did make that whole category for stuff I write and there’s barely anything there. Since this story is sort of long, though, I’m going to cut it down into multiple parts released once a week until we get through it all.

While I’m on the subject, I apologize for not posting yesterday. I was doing a thing in a place and therefore had neither the time nor the Internet connection to write something suitably witty.

The prompt for this was to write a “dystopian story that depicts a terrifying future”. I don’t know about terrifying, per se, but I think I succeeded at creepy. You’ll see what I mean.

Please remember that I had to fit the entirety of this story onto four pages, and so some things that would have made the writing better had to be cut to make it all fit. I haven’t added anything here, either; what you see is what the contest people got. Therefore, it’s not my best work, but it’s also not my worst, so I’m pretty proud of it, all told.

I hope you like it.

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