2013 D-Bag Awards Round One: The Internet Vs. Humanity

The Internet Vs. Us

It has gone online.  It has become aware.  We are screwed.   Why?

In 2013, the Internet gave us such wonderful things like “What The Fox Says” and Doge and a host of others, but with great fame comes great fail.  The Internet has proven, like so many other things that technology only serves to make us dumber.   And in that space between our ears we have heard a pin drop and the ocean roar.     We now have given fame to a group of people who were made famous by their picture being captioned by other people.  So much so, that they get to attend conventions and other events.   Twitter has made it easier for people to say stupid things and then try to erase them but you can’t erase cyberspace.  (We’re looking at all you idiots that don’t know who so and so hosting an awards show is and think that Kurt Cobain was a failure because he didn’t amass as huge of a following online as Justin Bieber). 

Then, there’s the whole, “X wants Y removed from the Internet.  Share it with everyone.”  Pictures of unflattering poses by superstars and Presidential skeet shooters got passed around everywhere.   Facebook became a ridiculous mess of Paul is Dead posts (Walker) and then when Nelson Madela died, no one cared.   "Let's see if this potato can get more likes than X".  We hashtagged everything that wasn’t anchored down.  Phil Robertson spoke out in a GQ piece about Gays and African Americans and got suspended from his television show job and all the Internet could say was that his freedom of speech was being violated.  (It wasn’t just so you know.  You people really are idiots… Yes, you too, Sarah Palin.  Someone who was the governor of a state and possibly a heartbeat away from the Presidency should know what the Bill of Rights covers.)  And with all that going on, we just know that the mainstream media is going to cover it, RIGHT?!?!?

Truly the Internet is a giant douche bag, allowing all of this failure to occur.   But wait…  It wasn’t the Internet, was it?

No, it was us. 

We did all of those things USING the Internet.  We gave all the twerkers and Harlem shakers fame via views.  We retweeted and favorited all of the hate speech and fail to a hilt.  We defended Phil and cherished an actor who died in an accident that had some irony as to his claim to fame.  

We did all that. 

We let Justin and Miley and all of them be even more famous because of social media.   We were unfriended by countless numbers of people on Facebook because they didn’t share our same outlook, flawed or right as it may be, and we got into flame wars on Twitter over stupid things.  We sat back, and watched the world burn and loved every minute of it.

I think we know the real winner of this, it’s us.  We are the bigger douche bag.   Look, as much as I hate what the Internet has become, it is an inanimate object.  For every picture of a drone or GMO plant or Illuminati conspiracy, there are people out there like John and Hank Green,  Hannah Hart and Talia Castellano.  We are making the hate and fail the bigger stories.  That’s why we are the bigger douche bags.   There are people out there using the Internet to try and make the world a better place but we can’t have nice things.  We ruin it like everything else in this world.  

The War On Thanksgiving

This has been heating up on social media and it’s beginning to piss me off.   I get it.  We shouldn’t be shopping on Thanksgiving.  We should be staying home with our families instead giving into the corporate machinations that drive greed and force retail workers to be on hand during the holidays instead of at home with their families who are probably hateful, drunk, and dysfunctional anyway.

The problem is that it’s not a perfect boycott.   Here’s why.

• Gas station attendants have to be on hand for you when you decide to pack up the family and go to grandma’s.
• Toll booth workers have to be on hand to collect on the turnpikes and expressways
• Hotels have to be staffed for you when you have to stay at the Comfort Inn because grandma has fifteen cats and you’re allergic.
• IT Analysts and System Admins have to be on hand for when Amazon or eBay breaks down because everyone who says, “I WON’T SHOP IN TARGET ON THANKSGIVING!” decides they will buck the trend by point and clicking their way through shopping instead of courting the brick and mortar versions of their favorite retailers.
• I could go on.

Look, I spent three years working on New Year’s Eve, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Thanksgiving in a hotel where the biggest problem was I had to cater to other peoples’ families instead of sharing in the holiday with my own.  It sucks, but it’s life.   Declaring with a graphic and a like that you won’t shop on Thanksgiving while doing other things that require support staff to handle your other activities is just hypocritical.  How about stay off social media on Thanksgiving.  Some poor IT person at Zynga or King or Facebook  has to be on hand because you’d rather stay home and play Candy Crush or Famville instead of shopping at Walmart.   And… some intern at Twitter has be on hand when you tell the world, “Gassing up at BP and turnpiking it with my fam instead of shopping at Target.  Suck it Wall St!”

You know, some people have no family.  Some people don't want to be around their family on the holidays, so working that day at time and a half pay might be something they enjoy or at least look forward to.  And you're robbing them of that because YOU feel YOUR AGENDA is the way it should be.  

Do I think stores should be open on Thanksgiving? No.  Black Friday?  Definitely, NO!  But it's not my problem.  It's not my place.  If people want to be assholes and corporations want to be greedy.  That's their business.  It's the framing of the argument that I take such issue with in this case.   Where do we get off high horsing our views and being placated because of it?  What entitlement crap gives us anymore say in this matter.  Vote with your dollar and don't shop.  But don't shame others into believing they're horrible because they do.  You're just as bad at other things that require support staff so don't act all high and mighty feeling that your own beliefs are solid and infallible.  Mind your own business. 

Oh, and don't read this on Thanksgiving.  Got it?