i AM aware of my hypocrisy.

For months now I have been annoyed with this new 'technology' called Twitter. On the surface, I hate everything about twitter. I'm told that it will bring much in the future, but as to what that much consist of, I cannot understand.

Much like blogs and facebook, it was explained to me that this was the future and I'd be left behind and that I was a luddite and that it was a new technology... that there was no limit to the communication possibilities.

Well, I did not believe this. I did not believe it about blogs and I did not believe it about facebook. However, you will now see that after long ignoring this blog thing of mine, I have added a new feature to it. It is my twitter account.

The thing is I don't believe the hype. I don't believe it anymore than the blog that I am posting this on. I don't like the word blog, facebook or (sigh here) twitter. Now it is 'tweet', before it was 'blog' or 'facebook'. At least facebook is still underlined in red when I spell check, but we already have words for these things. Other than being able to be ignored by more people than merely roommates, a blog is just a journal. Facebook is just your yearbook permanently being signed by old friends.... a never ending class yearbook. Tweet is the sound birds make. What you really mean to say is sentence.

The blog hasn't really changed my life in any profound way, other than to be an excuse as to why I don't have a proper website of my own creation. I don't worry about it. I certainly don't post everyday, and I have not received the promised book deals and fame and so forth. It does give me the added benefit of having a soapbox to stand on without the danger of public humiliation. Like everything else on the internet... it is virtual and thus harmless.

I have also not received anything from facebook. I have found some long lost buddies, but other than accepting my friendship, we have no real friendship now. Facebook did provide me with a headache in the form of a now former friend who hired me, underpaid me, and then decided to yell at me. We are not facebook friends anymore. I would hardly call that progress.

So now we get to the crux; Twitter. The Tweet.

See, first off, it isn't a new 'technology'. It is a new program. To me technology isn't merely some code, it is a real thing, like the wheel, the plane, the lighter, the computer... not something not real that is already on the computer, but now looks pretty and everyone is doing it.

And somehow typing short 140 character bits of trivial fodder that is running through my brain is going to change the world or magically make me money? I'm about to prove how it won't... at all. Just watch how pointless the whole exercise is as you sign up to follow me and I let you know what little I can contribute to your day by knowing even less important things about me than that which I bring up in my blog.

By the way, I only have a twitter account because I wanted free software that makes your voice sound like a squirrel and you could only get it if you had a twitter account.

See? I'm a whore just like everyone else. But can you blame me? It's a squirrel voice.

the cult of facebook

I’m writing again, after having my soul slowly sucked from me as I sit at this very computer over the past week and a half.

Never again will I do anything for long lost friends who pop out of the facebook world and ask for help. I thought I was doing a nice thing for someone, cause I thought I had the time. Apparently communication got a little screwy from the beginning, and I’m merely an employee in this person’s eyes, reduced to taking abuse through email and phone for an embarrassingly low amount of cash.

Really, I’m less than that, cause it is pretty much charity work at this point. I’ve been shafted by someone I once thought 10 years ago was a pretty close friend. Turns out she just wanted something for nothing and was prepared to shit on me to get it. Don’t ever piss off a volunteer. It will hurt you later.

So today’s post is about the dangers of facebook.

Facebook is a cult. If you doubt this fact, think of how you ended up with an account. Were you actually seeking a brand new way to email your friends?

Probably not.

Probably, like me, you barely remember that fateful click of the mouse. You just got tired of invitations clogging your email program and thought, ‘what harm could this do?’

After you clicked, suddenly you had to accumulate friends. The thrill of competition is very addictive. How many more friends can I have than that guy I worked with 10 years ago. Or my spouse. Then the website asks you to kindly search for other friends that you know through email.

Before you know it, you are tied to the computer trying to gain acceptance from the masses. Reconnecting with old friends and forgetting why you aren’t close friends anymore. (Anyone reading this who is an old friend of mine, it probably doesn’t apply to you. Of course I would say that, wouldn’t I? Please don’t deny me the virtual friendship.)

Then come the groups. Oh how I always wanted to be the popular kid in junior high and high school. Sadly, as is detailed in my post Trousers of Terror, this was well beyond my control. Of course I’ll click and accept any group that will have me.

You are rewarded on facebook for being active. You can add all sorts of very stupid doo-dads that promise hours of clicking fun. I don’t really get it. Sending people icons of perverted ideas doesn’t really contribute anything, does it? Sure, send me a hand job.... it’s still not a real hand job, is it? Kind of useless. Even the thought of a handjob without the actual follow through is not that appealing. It’s just sad and frustrating.

It reminds me of that strange plan to end world hunger by clicking on a website. Apparently that doesn’t really work otherwise we would have moved on to ending the genocide in Darfur by now and would be well on our way to halting climate change.

I’m not sure what the motive is behind these stupid games. Someone is creating them, so I gather someone is making money off of this. But who, and why, and, most importantly, how... and who (again)?

Perhaps it is the makers of icy hot causing a plague of carpal tunnel syndrome as we all click our way to the inevitable computer geek posture. Once we all have the same aliment, it will be easy to dominate us as a society. No one will be able to even raise their good hand to fight. Our opposable thumbs will be useless.

And just like a cult, people will object to those who question the wisdom of facebook. I’ve heard people get rather defensive about it claiming that this will bring the world closer together.

No it won’t.

People always respond that this is merely a conspiracy theory. But there are real conspiracies. It really does happen. Isn't this also what fellow members of a cult would tell you when you’d suggest that things aren’t on the up and up?

We bitch and whine, with good reason, that the government is trying to spy on us. (They are.) They don’t have to spend money on spying on us anymore. Just a couple of guys in front of facebook can find out pretty much anything such as where you have been throughout your life, who your friends and acquaintances are, what you are up to that very day.

Last night, I even managed to track down the wife of the stupidest and nastiest person I have ever met in the world, only to discover that she is pregnant with his demon child. It made me slightly sick to think that such a man is now reproducing. It may even drive me to reproduce to offset the effect of yet another spoiled little rich kid to populate this planet.

It’s really not healthy for me to have access to such information.

We just pour our guts out on this site and not enough of us are getting suspicious.

Think hard before you accept friendship from that guy who bullied you in elementary school. Is he really your friend? Or does he just want a chance to bully you some more from the safety of the interweb, cause he’s fat now and couldn’t possibly really hurt you in the real analog world.

It is time to revolt against the facebook cult.

Oh, and don’t drink the facebook kool-aid.