In recent days, I've given into a streak of curiosity about several things that are apparently quite popular or successful on this world wide web of ours. Not only have I wasted precious seconds of my life that I would like dearly to demand a refund for, but I'm quite certain I've lost several million braincells just by allowing these things to load in my home. Not every item on the list is something that has sprung up suddenly, as I typically don't jump into trends as soon as I hear about them. I also have not personally investigated each and every item on the list, and others I have spent hours on. Even after spending a mere handful of seconds on some of these, I have spent an untold additional amount of time boggling over the lack of sense one must have to actually enjoy some of them. So here they are in no particular order.
1. RIFT
This first entry, an MMORPG, is one of the things I have not bothered to spend the actual time or hard drive space to investigate beyond the random advertisement here and there that has snuck past my ad blocking Firefox addons. The reason it is on the list without my actually taking the time to try it out is solely due to its advertisements and other people talking about it. In the span of a few short weeks, I was bombarded with advertisements for this game like I have never seen before. It seemed each and every site I visited for three weeks straight was slinging a sidebar ad here, a banner ad there, a massive page background ad or there was yet another thread in one of the few forums or blogs I bother to visit. RIFT will be the end of WoW. RIFT is so much better than X or Y. It quickly became unbearable to the point where I just want the game to fail miserably so I can stop hearing about it. The advertising campaign for this game has been comparable to those of politicians in the months leading up to an election. Go away, RIFT. Go away for good, please.
2. Advertisements
I don't think there is a single person on the facelessness of the web who actually enjoys being exposed to the harassment of advertising. Just as people watching television see commercial breaks as a short window to go to the restroom, throw their Hot Pockets in the microwave or quickly flip to another station to see if they're not having a commercial break of their own, I'm plenty thankful for those Firefox addons that block most advertisements. Have you ever loaded a web page and just as you start reading the article, the page itself fades into the background and you're suddenly the victim of an unnecessarily loud, unbearably low-quality recording of an emotionless woman droning on about some horse crap or another? Yeah, the last thing in the world something like that makes me want to do is rush out and buy their product. If I want information about something, I'll google it. Don't harass and pester me while I'm trying to read something I actually have an interest in. And I know there are people who will argue "Well, that's how they make money. That's how they get heir product to sell." yeah, but how much of the crap that isn't vital to the comfort and necessity of our everyday lives is actually worth spending money on? Look at junk like the shake weight and the whole Bowflex and Nordic Trac thing. Can anyone actually justify the money they spend on things like this? If you're that serious about keeping up a healthy exercise regimen, just go to a gym or find some other way to accomplish it. Machines like this are a waste of resources and money and more often than not are going to end up in a landfill in a few years anyway. But I digress. Sod off, advertisements. If I want information about your product, I'll come looking for it.
3. Twitter
Ever since I first heard of Twitter, I've hoped it would wither and die. Instead, I hear more and more in the news, "'Blah blah blah' said Celebrity X in a recent tweet." or "'Herpty derpty derp derp.' tweets Celebrity Y."
So I gave in to curiosity, installed the Twitter app on my iPod and spent a few painful minutes browsing around. Topic after topic, page after page, every single tap deeper into this awful crap, identical entries "retweeted" across user after user with a tiny fraction of original posts scattered throughout. And the grammar and spelling was painful to previously unexplored levels. Or should I say grammer and speling? U no u wont 2 c wats n their. The ignorant and lazy will argue, "its the internet no1 has 2 use proper grammer all the time". Of course they don't, but it definitely decreases the odds of someone with more than half a brain just blowing past your words and assuming (usually quite correctly) that you're a complete moron and your words are even more meaningless than the electrical impulses firing in your sparsely populated cranium.
If you want to be heard, there are countless free blog hosting sites out there. Put a little effort and brainpower into your words and write something worthwhile or amusing instead of hashes and barely intelligible letters and word fragments. If you want to have a conversation, there are several IM programs and apps and an almost infinite number of message boards out there. Sod off, Twitter. Sit and spin.
4. Nyan Cat
I can't even begin to comprehend how people can find this entertaining or amusing on any level. Three and a half freaking minutes of a handful of images cycled in a simple, absolutely pointless animation of a cat with a Pop Tart for a body that appears to be pumping its tail like an old water spicket (I'm not sure I spelled that right. The iPod doesn't like nor recognize the word. Pfffffft.) in order to continuously crap out more and more rainbow with a mindless, unintelligible voice saying what sounds like "meow", although I have seen argued that it is "nyan", alongside a poorly constructed "musical" composition. There are definitely much dumber things on the Internet that I have found endless amusement in, but this one just makes me want to hit something or someone.
5. My Little Pony
I don't know why, when or how this suddenly became so huge nor do I intend to put the effort into investigating it. I'm just completely sick and tired of hearing about it from several sources every day for the last several weeks. It's like RIFT with annoying cartoon horses. Any time I'm sent a link having anything to do with this, I refuse to click it and inform the sender as such. And yet the links continue to roll in.
6. Facebook Ads
On an entirely different level of pain in the ass, Facebook ads are a world apart from banner ads, popup ads and flash popups. Why? They're small, simple, out of the way and they never pop up to obscure your page. So what's the problem? They're there and they're advertisements. If I click on the little X to make it go away, it asks me why. Before the new options, I always chose "Offensive" as I take offense to having ads shoved in my face. Now, I'm stuck with either that or "Against my views." while these two options are more or less the truth, I want the option of not being exposed to them at all without being redirected to a subscription sign-up page like the "remove ads" link on so many other sites. Well they can't operate if they don't make money. You know what? Big deal. I'm sure the world won't explode if Facebook shuts down. There are plenty of other ways for people to make money without shoving a thousand ads in my face that I have less than 0 interest in. Until they start smearing two ads onto the pages of users who actuality click them, they're going to continue receiving an offensive or against my views report for every one I see.
That wraps up this session of bitching. Coming soon, possibly, a positive post. Won't that be fun for a change?
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