Rant: Internet Simping

  The Internet is a strange place.  Where else can you buy plane tickets, research epilepsy in dogs, & find porn all with the same tool???  The E-co system (see what I did there?) encourages behavior that can be seen as lame in real life.  I'm just trying to figure it all out.  Below are some examples with my opinion of it, let me know what your thoughts are in the comments...or not (reverse psychology).

  
The Mass Complimenter 
  The "You Catch More Flies With Honey" Technique.  This person likes hundreds of pictures and posts daily of people they find attractive.  Chances are, if you go through a pretty girl's photo album on Facebook or Instagram (same difference) you will see the same people like and/or compliment the majority of her pictures.  The real life equivalent to this is complimenting someone about their outfit everyday.  Sure, it would be nice at first, but after a week of getting "you look great", "damn, gorgeous", or "You're so fine, I'd pay money to slow dance with your ugly sister" (or whatever these people say) you'd start to look at them funny.

Fact

Hunger Games Stays True & Racists Rage

  We (mostly minorities and some whites) know that racism still exists.  Granted, it's been a few years since I've been called a nigger in the streets, it's still around below the surface.  Hollywood has been aware of this for decades and has continued to market movies towards the white majority in order to maximize profits (racist motivations take a slight back seat to profit).

  The Hunger Games has a huge fan base around the country stemming from the success of the novel.  Safe to say the majority of the fans that went to see the movie adaptation read or have some familiarity with the book.  Funny thing is, they don't all remember some of the characters the same way the book described them. 

  Check out this blog for some examples of how seeing black actors representing beloved characters made some fans angry. 

http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made

Duplicity & When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong

  Who you are should be a source of confidence and pride. You should be able to accept yourself for who you are, short comings and all, and unflinchingly present yourself to the world (not in the 'Janet Jackson at the Superbowl' way...all though I never complain about seeing a nice pair of milk glands). That's not to say you shouldn't try and improve on what you perceive as a personal flaw (All though some theorize that your weaknesses will always be your weaknesses and rather than waste time focusing on them, you should just continue to improve on your strengths...food for thought, but I digress), rather that you should be conscious & comfortable enough with them to continue to live as you see fit.  Be that as it may, presenting your full personality is not beneficial all the time

  The most obvious of these moments when you may curb your nature is at the office.  Political correctness and modern corporate culture aims to take the more inflammatory parts of ourselves out of the office.  All though it may seem like a good idea to slap your female coworker on the ass the same way you do your female friends (as I do), this isn't the 50's and you'd have some tough conversations in your future (if it were the 50's, I'd be lucky to even be in that situation, as most janitors didn't have female coworkers...if I did & it happened to be a white woman...let's just say I'd get a view to die for at the next lynching).  Cursing, crude jokes, politics, and personal beliefs are all things that have been removed from the office environment so that it can be more palatable by a larger group of people.  This makes sense to me, as I also limit the extent of the insanity that I show while at work or around coworkers. 

The Social Media Filter pt. 2: My Stance

**House Keeping**
  My goal for creating the debate topic posts has been to present you all with a situation or observation and (hopefully) spark some conversation about it.  I try to state my opinion of it simply, and leave it up to the readers to discuss without me directing it too much.  In this case, I've been asked to elaborate on my opinion (*Waves to Hazel & Domo*), so this is that.

  I feel like we are losing sight of the power of social media.  I create a profile, upload a profile pic, enter some basic info, Google indexes it, then anybody that searches something similar can get access to that information.  That visibility is too often over-looked by this generation.  I know a lot of things that I shouldn't about people I don't know, barely know, or have never met.  People get tunnel vision when using social media, thinking that it's just them & their online friends in the circle of trust...when really, some 60 year old guy in his tighty-whities is reading your tweets about how you are about to finger-bang your night away (FTR, I wear boxers).

The Social Media Filter

  Social media connects people in ways that previously weren't possible or weren't preferred.  My friend in Canada can go to my Facebook page and see my latest activity, but so can that creepy chick that I just accepted as a friend out of sympathy.  Also, a company that I'm applying for can search my profile to see what I do in my personal life before they hire me (That's the reason I take down the pics of me smiling at the camera while drunkenly mounting a chick bent over my coffee table before I interview). Now, with some properly applied privacy settings, the people that you aren't close to can only get a limited portion of your online shenanigans.  However, what about those you are close with?

Anti-Social Networking

  Social networking has been around forever...literally.  The locations & list of approved electronic devices has grown, but it's nothing new.  I remember some of the other sites I would frequent to see what was new with my friends & flirt with girls:

Hold up, let me update my status real quick

  -The Playground
 This was the first sight I can remember craving.  All the users were my demographic, so it was easy to connect with them.  It had the best built in games that weren't obnoxious.  If I wanted to know how well Rico was doing on the monkey bars, I just had to walk over and find out.  If I wanted some multi-player games, I could play tag or get on the merry-go-round.  Site security was an issue sometimes though, as I had to get parental permission to access it, I had to watch out for pedo's offering candy, & I could easily pick up a virus from the hardware.  Not sure when...but I just outgrew it.

3 Reasons Why I Dislike Twitter

  I Hate dislike Twitter. I use it, but I feel like I'm forced to because a lot of my friends use it.  Whenever I check my time line, I'm always assaulted with the same issues that reinforce my distaste for the social networking soup de jour.  Here are some of my main annoyances:

1. Good Concept, Poor Execution
  The idea of Twitter makes sense, a free flowing sea of information generated by the users for the users.  But in action, this simplistic goal is bogged down and diluted by it's own technical shortcomings.  Any website that can only be tolerated by using a third party application has a major design flaw.  Nobody...well, nobody that knows how to set the timer on their microwave tweets via Twitter.  Whether it be Peep, Echofon, Tweetdeck, Twitdroid, Spaz, or whatever the hell you use...A home-grown solution is needed to make the site more bearable. Using one of these is like knowing how to swim before you jump in the ocean...if not, you bound to drizzown.

  My biggest problem is the fact that debates & conversations are very difficult to follow (no pun intended).  If you aren't following everybody that's involved in the discussion, you instantly missed everything they've added unless you go "Dog the bounty hunter" style and start checking the replies. If that person has protected tweets, then it's just a lost cause.  The other way around this is by re-tweeting what you are responding to. This method leaves you in a maze of @So&So, #'s, & RTs that will make it unclear who said what...all while trying to get a full thought across withing the 140 character cap.

  Speaking of the 140 character cap: it seems like the creators and the users have two different opinions of what should be tweeted.  The creators seemed to have intended for a quick, succinct statement of what you are doing or what you are thinking.  The users, however, use it differently. This often happens, where the designer will give people a tool and expect it to be used one way, but then the users take that tool to a new, higher level by making it more functional than planned.  This, however, is a gift and a curse.

I'm on a boat!!! I must tweet this!  (http://www.innyvinny.com/2010/08/10/oh-slate/)