37 Mind-Blowing Reasons Why You Should Stop Being a Centipede
Hi….my name is Groovey and I am a hyperbole addict. The editor of this publication has been trying to knock me off my hyperbole high-horse for years with no positive results. While I still suffer from the seemingly never-abating thirst for exaggeration my dark passenger of “Wowee!” and “WHIZBLAMMO!” is slowly weakening its grip upon my weak literary tongue. Unfortunately my enrollment in the Exclamation-Point 12 Step Program™ had nothing to do with the advice of authors far above my station. No, it has to do with realizing that I could spend half a day creating something new or supporting some artist who is creating something new or dear god anything but just assembling another . . .
LIST. Of all the current intelligence-cancers eating away at the attentions of internet users the worst is “The List”. I am guilty of clicking on lists, creating lists and I even have asked others to create lists because humans seem to ingest lists like koi in a piranha pond. I was click desperate and having view DTs. I am sorry to all those I hurt. It was this realization that set me on the path to not click on a list for 30 days. To get that 30-Day coin to hang on my key chain was my goal. I made it a week. “Five Things You Never Knew About Star Wars!!” got me. I’m weak. I challenge you to stop looking at the endless lists being bot-generated for click-bait. If you see, “47 Signs That Your Pizza May Be Haunted!” or “12 Reasons Vladimir Putin should be Your Hairdresser!” Take a moment and a deep breath and be better than me. Take that time to find a talented artist of whatever positive things you are into and support them. The only other option is the . . .
SURVEY. Surveys are the over-caffeinated 4am truck stop table games of the internet and the only reward is showing the collective how stupid you look. They are rampant. People I have intense respect for take surveys like “What is your real age?”, “What State Should You be Living In?” and of course the one I have already mocked “What Game of Thrones Character are You?” Your real age is based on your birth date, the state you should live in is the one you want to move to and if Peter Dinklage took the last one he would get Hodor because the outcome is worthless drivel. (For those lucky enough to not be addicted to this fantasy crack Peter Dinklage plays a genius dwarf and Hodor is a challenged giant of a man.) The time it takes to fill out a 20 question survey that is just keyboard lithium for boredom could be spent on discovering and improving…something. Find a creator and support them or create something yourself. Anything but giving an algorithm a bunch of data to better market to you things you already have. Hence the boredom so already infused into our nubile online culture that people have to revert to the good old days that most likely sucked but they were thinner with . . .
THROW BACK THURSDAYS. Shove them up your bored ass. Right up. Start FUTURE FRIDAYS. Post something about something you are creating or support a creator’s future. This won’t include your kids, your burrito, your kid’s burrito or a selfie of you with your kids holding their burritos in the background. I would much rather see an original post by an agenda nut, “The GMO con-trails made my kid’s hollow-point ammo gluten-free at the vegan rally for Christ!” than an archaic picture from a time when you thought you were cool. You’re just as cool now as you were then. Go support and create something. Your wrinkles are just trophies for surviving another year on this impossible orbiting lavaball of impending death so quit worrying about them.
We are neck deep in a miasma of web-boredom because we are interacting with the internet as if it was an aging beloved pet instead of the data mining tool for new discovery and expansionary communication device that it was meant for. These endless dumbed down online Human Centipede transactions that are just a meat train of stupidity are affecting everything in the media. And it’s not just the “Fox Newsification” of the world as some very funny people have put it. As always it’s money. More clicks more money. Watch and pay attention to the headlines of your favorite legitimate sites. They are morphing into hyperbole list beasts before our eyes. There was a time when one word headlines made people shutter with fear and awe because words mean things and it was pure news right from the vein. There’s a certain “WAR!” headline that made every continent collectively shit itself. Now we get things like, “12 Reasons We Should Think of Fukushima as a Helpful Sushi Pre-Cooker!”
The first steps to repaving the internet lemming path away from the Whoopsie! Cliff is by not supporting the things I have listed. Take that time to create or support creators. Be stronger than me. Make it more than week on those lists. Listen to a new band, write a poem, freaking do an annoying interpretive dance for your friends. Those things brighten lives and inch us forward. And while you are at it sign a net neutrality petition because the FCC is guzzling greed from the graft keg and really if net neutrality dies you will be paying through the eye holes for lists, surveys, Throw Back Thursdays, your friends kids with burrito pics and even more obvious corporate manufactured news.
Actually better yet let’s just screw the internet. Let’s just shut it off. I think we were happier without it. Let’s have a pint at a pub, watch a band play and bullshit about starting a fanzine.
Cheers!
Groovey in the thick of lad hood
This photo will never be shared on a Thursday