UUUM

I've been posting a lot of my crappy MSPaintJobs to a Facebook group called Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Memes. Here is some of my "work":

10 Annoying Questions I'm Tired of Seeing on Facebook

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Moralretrolling (or Sorry Friends For the Social Experiment)

[I know I still haven't finished putting up the Halloween/wedding photos. In time you will all know the shocking truth. Detours and whatnot. It's not like I've even got to last year's "Best of 2011" music post, so whatevs.] 

Yesterday morning when I got up, I was alerted to some really awesome and hilarious trolling courtesy JeShirt.com (cross-reference the Twitter, blog, and and Facebook pages for the complete saga). I've also been consuming quite a bit of media with trolling and double-crossing lately (Hitchock spy films, Trapped in the Closet, WWF, Borat, On Cinema Podcast) and was inspired to do some of my own. The target was those absolutely ridiculous Facebook reposts, mostly of the "something about privacy" sort that has been plaguing our news feeds over the past few days. This shit all happened already several months ago, but it must've been before Election Day when all of our memories were wiped.

Quite a few friends had been reposting this bullshit yet again, so I figured it was time to do something that would be hilarious to me for a while that we could go back and learn a lesson from then we all have a laugh together. Moral-retro-trolling-LOLing or something. Here's the original post:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times.  

(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook's direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.

Something like that at least. Whatever it was it was clearly pointless bullshit that amounted to nothing. I then took that text and modified it so it said the exact opposite of the original message (and added in some things that would be dead giveaways as to its authenticity):

I tried to work in the Asian Dawn Movement from Hans Gruber's communique, but went for Looney Tunes instead. I immediately had second thoughts about posting it because another friend had just minutes before posted a very clear "Come on people, stop falling for this scam" plea. But I risked the nose-in-the-book penalty and hit "post."

Not too long after I posted my mess, I got a "like" from a former lawyer/current writer who I'm sure navigated my BS legalese. Then there was a response from someone that clearly understood my culture jamming with a Banksy joke and I retorted with another nod from the troll classic, Exit Through The Gift Shop. I figured the jig was up before it was ever down.

HOWEVER, I immediately spotted a couple reposts. I assumed they were ironic reposts, BUT THEY WEREN'T!

I prematurely gloated on Twitter that some were non-ironic posts, but soon realized that none were.   I then made the decision to stay in troll mode if anyone questioned me on it, because that's really the secret to successful performance art. Of course, when actual funny people do successful performance art, they aren't usually making their friends the victims.

My good friend with the dark squiggles did everything right (if it had been an actual reposting of the original bullshit text). He immediately called me out and directed me to Snopes.com, a skeptical website that had already debunked the legitimacy of the source material. I've long been a fan of the Snopes website and subscribe to the "Checking snopes before forwarding dumb emails" Facebook group. Since I regularly throw it in people's faces myself, I'm familiar with the popular retort "I don't trust Snopes. It's full of liberal bias" (SPOILER: it's not). I felt like such a ignorant superdouchebag repeating it. Half-wanting to get caught, I tried to draw hearsay-style attention to the Derpa Convention, but he stuck to his original guns and the argument fizzled into a into a Mr. Show skit.

Elsewhere, more of the right thing was happening, for the most part, despite my egotistical attempts to thwart it. 

Here I learned that people are immune to, or are at least aware of older social media scams, but are not necessarily ready to take a stand against newer ones as quickly. My trolling here again sticks out like a sore thumb on a jerk that could have been more productive in the anti-fraud movement instead of the chuckling-to-himself movement. To be honest, I feel pretty shitty just posting these exchanges, even with the blurred names, but there's a greater good somewhere here, right? And to my credit, I'm not actually lying in any of my responses. If you read between the lines, most of them amount "Go back and read between the lines."

This one was deleted not too long after someone figured out what was going on:

Finally, the text I rewrote was actually being read. And then we've got the admission that sometimes, we don't read what we're signing on to. I think it's safe to draw the conclusion that people, when they are tired or vulnerable, sometimes cling to things just because they seem like they mean well, even if they actually mean the opposite and serve to take advantage. It's a horrible thing, but it happens all the time with get rich quick schemes and cold call scams. In comparison, a simple repost may seem like a harmless piece of nothing, but blind trust is a gateway drug to getting totally fucked with.

And that person totally fucking with you, and totally feeling troll's remorse at this point, may not be me next time.

Blue Squiggles was the one that reposted my text in that example, but Purple Squiggles called him out on it, thinking the text was about protecting copyright. So I jumped in to ask stupid questions and escalated the situation using Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies as soon as I had the opportunity. Just when I thought the conversation had hit a Ludicrous enough Speed to expose my trolling, Purple Squiggles lit up my chat window. And yes, she again made great points about the futility of trying to protect copyright on publicly-traded social media websites, but still didn't actually read the text that was posted. To her credit, she did note the sarcasm in my growing electioneering, but I admitted nothing.

A few degrees of separation away was someone that did get it:

That sort of made up for my regret. The experiment dried up pretty quickly after that (though I get to play dumb for my soon-to-be brother-in-law and accuse Gizmodo of being in bed with Facebook). On the whole, only a small handful people took the bait which means either:

1. people read it, got it, and didn't respond
2. people saw the first few words, dismissed it, and didn't respond 
3. people already don't read anything I post and/or have my posts hidden

Assuming that the 2 and 3 are the more likely scenarios, then I've accomplished very little more other than squeezing out a blog entry, and possibly making myself look like The RoBeast Who Cried Wolf. It's also going to mean that people probably aren't going to see this post either and realize that I was joking the whole time.

I did learn that even skeptical people are guilty of not fully examining their materials. People are ready to jump all over each other for reposting unread nonsensical text, but then end up not reading the instructions to their own Jump to Conclusions Mat. On one hand, I've never seen such an immediate response from the Facebook masses rushing to invoke the Snopes Defense before. But it's also a bit sad that with all the daily bullshit we see on there, people are only well-mobilized against a low-scale Facebook scam. It's a start I guess.

Well, thank you for participating in my half-baked experiment, willingly or otherwise, and I'm sorry for screwing with you. I did my best to cover up everyone's names other than my own. If I missed any, let me know. If you still don't believe I was trolling the whole time, then I'm just going to assume you're trolling. 

Facebook.com/?????

Two weekends ago, Facebook decided to allow registration for subdomains. Unlike the 200,000 people that immediately logged in at midnight to take advantage of the service, I hesitated. It took months just to come up with Beauty and the RoBeast, so I knew it could take time to come up with something snazzy. A few days into Snatchfest 2009, I started getting anxious, so I did some preliminary brainstorming. Facebook only suggested boring variations on my name and most of the obviously offensive stuff was gone already. I threatened to steal a friend's name in protest, but even that move was old news by the time I considered it. I needed to enter the universe of the absurd.

Here is a short, exciting list of subdomains that are still available (as of 6/25):

/shitonashingle
/butterballturkey
/waristheanswer
/nicebeaver
/rickyschroeder
/drinkyourdrugs
/electricsportsbra
/snakesonatrain
/gloriouswatsontits
/leaveamessageatthebeep
/policeacademyfour
/teenwolfblitzer
/chickencow
/trampstampclamp
/thethethe
/jesuschristsuperhighway
/defenderoftheuniverse
/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz12345678
/stopallthedownloading
/alldayidreamaboutsex
/ppppppokerface
/americanapparatus
/ahorseisahorseofcourseofcourse
/gozerthetraveler
/happybirthdaytoyou
/iwannaknowwhatloveis
/iwantyoutoshowme
/notmychairnotmyproblem

No such luck on /saddamhussein, /feliznavidad, or /facebookdotcomslash. I was especially disappointed about the last one not being available, not because someone else grabbed it, but because it seems that Facebook simply prohibits it. I loved saying it out loud, and still craved something similarly meta, so I abbreviated it to /faceslash. It's postmodern, catchy, and violent! I quickly registered on Facebook, and then immediately finger-ran (I need to work on this one) to Urban Dictionary to lay claim to this new definition for faceslash. Amazingly, Urban Dictionary approved it in just one hour! I think this may turn out to be way cooler in my imagination, but I'm still going to pretend that this term catches on fire and I soon see this headline on the cover of Newsweek:

FACESLASH BURNINATES THE INTERNETS!

Beauty and the Lame-Beast

An old friend from grade school and more recently, Myspace, made the big leap to Facebook today, attributing the social networking jump to "Retiring from MySpace."

I accepted his friend request, and responded with "Retiring, eh? Will you now be collecting Social Network Security?"

Puzzzzzzzzzles

Last night I realized two very important things:

1. Samuel Adams is an anagram for A Mad Mule Ass
2. Sierra Nevada is an anagram for Raised A Raven

I also played with a Rubik's Cube for some time yesterday evening. It was a 4x4 Cube, which I understand is considerably more difficult than a 3x3. I didn't even know there were different sizes. I haven't touched one of those things in twenty years. It's sick, but I sort of can't stop thinking about it. I was unable to solve the puzzle because I don't really know how the things work. I am going to have no choice but to pick one up for myself to learn its secrets.

In other puzzle news, I officially fucking hate the new Scrabble beta application on Facebook. I know this is late pass, but I actually wanted to give it a fair shot. I am going to finish the games I'm currently playing and then never touch it again. Yeah, I know it's beta, but it's ruining my Scrabble experience. I had a game going with Kevin*, an amigofriend new to Facebook. Despite the numerous bugs and play issues, we were having a close, competitive game. Then Kevin discovered that he had had a turn skipped in an earlier. We should have abandoned the game right then and there, but because we had already invested so much time patiently playing around the problems, I decided to manually skip my turn instead, and let Kevin catch up fairly. Of course, as it was so late in the game, giving Kevin two turns in a row allowed him to get to a Triple Word Score fairly easily, which turned the tide in scoring. To make a long story short, I ended up losing by a few points and now I'm crying about it.

While I actually do side with Hasbro in this whole Scrabble vs. Scrabulous intellectual property and rights debate, I think their alternative application fucking sucks. And since the customer is always right, I will be playing Wordscraper (the further adventures of the rebellious Scrabulous coders) until either Scrabble is no longer beta, or Hasbro realizes that the Scrabulous app is a thousand times better than their POS and coughs up some compensation for that renegade code.

Speaking of shit flowing downhill, Urban Dictionary's Word of the Day has been terrible every day for a long time. On top of that, UD has also added a comments option for the WOTD that is consistently filled with an even mix of pointless spam and colorful bickering. I can't really tell if the naysaying is penned by 12-year olds with no sophisticated way to express themselves or annoyed older curmudgeons like me that have chosen to regress back to a 12-year old's insult style in protest. Either way, we all agree that most of the featured words suck.

As it turns out, the majority of the interactive users are in fact 12-year olds, as I discovered by entering UD's extremely unnecessary Chat Room. This new feature was so lame that I didn't even stick around long enough to bully the kids about their horrible taste in music. Maybe I should take all my entries elsewhere, including the one apparently still under review by "editors" who are too busy sorting through all of this bullshit:

juggalin - A term used When a Juggalo Just sits around listening 2 juggalo music,watchin a dvd or doing anything involving other juggalos! by juggalopride187

bloody sundae - when someone pops a girls cherry and holds an ice cream sundae underneath so that the blood trickles down like syrup. by ovi ghosh

Nguyen-Vy - a badass guy of asian descent who plays guitar, skateboards, and does everything else amazingly. by Naked Dang

And there you have 17 hundred thousand percent of all Urban Dictionary entries... dumbasses trying to show off their shitty taste in music, their plans to invent pointless new sex terms, or just typing their own name and attempting to define it. Fuck all y'all.

Sorry there aren't any pictures in this post--I'm using the RoBeastress's computer and I just can't do anything with a Mac. How could I? This thing thinks Delete means Backspace and it's got an Eject button where the real Delete should be. Anyway, there will plenty of photos in my next entry - The RoBeast Cola Challenge, where I make an ass out of myself and get a stomach ache!

(* name not changed to protect the innocent)

Facebook is Racist

... against Cheeseburgers. Ok, maybe not racist, but there is definitely rampant meat-product discrimination going on over there.

I tried to change my Facebook name today to Rollie Cheeseburger Hatch. I don't really know why. I just wanted to. My actual middle initial is C, and people are always asking what it stands for, so I figured I'd just go with Cheeseburger. Plus, I had a really good cheeseburger on Saturday night at Acme Underground.

Despite my knowing attempt to circumvent Facebook's rules (bullet point 3)...


I went for it. Upon clicking Confirm Request, Facebook immediately switched to DEFCON 3:

"Your name change request has been rejected by our automated approval system."

So sad. I tried three more times just to make sure I didn't fuck up somewhere in the one step process. I didn't.

Not one to let The Man defeat me, I went for an alternate dairy-meat dream-meal. Quesoburguesa sounded good, but didn't stay true to my actual C-lead middle name. I needed one that would thwart the "automated approval system" and survive processing limbo where my submission would face up to 24 hours of interrogation by the Facebook KGB.

A half hour later, I have become Rollie Cheesesteak Hatch.

Why, Facebook? Why Cheesesteak, but not Cheeseburger? Why do you automatically assume that someone could not really be named Cheeseburger? There is a dude that changed his hame to Trout Fishing in America in 1994. How the hell is he going to get a Facebook account approved?

It's time for another highly unscientific RoBeast experiment. (In the interest of getting this expose published already, I will be updating the results throughout the day.)

Acceptable:

• Cheesesteak
  
• Chickennugget
• Chopped Liver
• Castlevania
  

Unacceptable:

• Cheeseburger

Undetermined (AKA too impatient):

• Chuck Wagon
  

I have also chosen to publish the news of this unfortunate setback in Cheeseburger history on Wikipedia. (note - this was considered "junk" and removed that night)

My Thoughts on Social Media or You Can't Stop the Rain

I am, as always, so very fascinated with the differences between introverts and extroverts and all the gradations between them as I myself am an oh-so quirky blend of both. I am very introverted in the sense that being around people and being "on" exhausts me, and then I feel the need to hermit and hide to recharge. I am not afraid of people or social interactions. You could drop me into any party anywhere with any different kind of people, and I could shift gears and entertain them all no problem if I wanted to...and that really is the kicker. IF I wanted to, and mostly I don't. I hate the cell phone; I hate idle chit chat on it. I answer the phone with what do you want or what's your story or hit me or digame when I am feeling my NM roots. Sometimes I just answer the phone WHAT? If you call me and don't leave a message, I will never call you back. Heck, if you leave me a voicemail message I may not listen to it for a week and sit there resenting its very presence in the icons on my phone as if it was a guilt bomb just waiting to go off. I am weird. I know this. I was not a loner in high school or college. In high school I was in every sport, every single extracurricular activity we had. I was the lead in many of my high school plays, and for fuck's sake I was the stinking prom queen as one would rightly expect of a Princess. I am also the girl that everyone wants to tell their story to. That homeless guy on the street? The cashier at CVS? The chick at the bar? Yes. Yes. Yes. And not just their stories, but their secrets, things they would never tell anyone else ever. These are the things that scarred them emotionally; things they've done or were done to them. These are stories that transfer some of that scar to the listener if you are human and have a heart at all.

I am the girl people feel so comfortable around they think they can take liberties with; thus, I don't go out much. It's not that I don't want to hear your stories or absolve you of your sins or send you down the path to healing...it's just that it takes so much of me to do that, and I need to husband my strength for the people I truly love, or I cannot perform the same services for them. I am not the Jesus, not even fucking close. I can't reach out my hand to everyone and retain myself. That's just not how it works for me, and I've spent my whole life figuring out how it does work for me and learning how to set my boundaries accordingly. I walked to the convenience store the other day and talked to Sapo the homeless granpa for an hour; he told me he was smiling so hard his face hurt and that we'd been talking so long his knees were getting stiff. He had a lot to say and not everyone gives him the chance to say it. I touched Little Big Indian, aka known as Isaac and also homeless, on the hand the other day and promised to mail a letter and a card he had drawn for some girl, and I had never spoken to him before in my life. I won't turn it off if I meet you, but I will try to restrict the moments that it can happen within. It is a taking whether you mean to or not, and I only have so much to give. What I have to give I will, when and where I can, and do it gladly with no reservations in my heart. It takes a toll though because I listen. I really listen. I look you in the face. I hear you. Don't waste this precious time with mindless blather or ask me how I am doing to be polite if you really don't care because you are wasting time and energy and air and such things are precious.

People invariably either love me, or they hate me. They think either that I hung the moon or
that I am an utter bitch and a lot of that is how you approach me or trespass upon me. Sometimes I am in no mood, and I broadcast on a wideband emotionally. I can walk into a room pissed off as hell and not say a word or betray my emotions with body language, and people will still feel it. Sometimes I can't keep it in. The times that I strip all emotions out of my voice and talk calmly and evenly with no emotional inflection are the times when people freeze like a mouse before a snake. Those are the times that people burst into tears and become terrified. I still haven't figured that one out quite yet. I guess the absence of all emotions is more terrifying than someone yelling at you? Is that the serial killer calmness? Does it trigger the primal fight or flight response? Does it hypnotize you to draw you in for the kill? Does the mammal brain remember what it feels like to be prey and reacts instinctively?

All these words, words, WORDS to say that I really value all the digital social networking. It really works for me. It is remote intimacy on my time that I can turn on and off at will. I can get to know you, sift the trivia of your life through my fingers, absorb the data in the details, but only if I want to. We are building communities in new ways out here on the edges of cyberspace, and it definitely overlaps with real life. Facetime is precious in this increasingly busy world; facetime is a commodity not a given or a right. In my book (and I know my book is weird), facetime should be earned. Thus, I use the twitter and the tumblr and the myspace and the blogs and such. I satisfy my extroverted needs for attention by casting my thoughts out into cyberspace; I choose which people I want to interact with; I build cyber relationships that may indeed carry over into real life. I've been reading articles and blogs about people who consider themselves introverts and how they feel about things like twitter and AIM or Facebook (which is wholly evil imho) or Myspace. It's been interesting. Not everyone agrees. Some introverts think it levels the playing field for them with the extroverts, some introverts find it all too obtrusive. I fall somewhere in the middle. I pick and choose what I need because communication, though it is something you do with other people, is still a very individual and specific thing. What I consider obtrusive you may feel is necessary and vice versa. I did my graduate work in Communications. I am fascinated with people's styles and needs and methods of communication, but I never understand why people poo-poo someone else's style because it is different than their's. I guess people, even the most seemingly liberal, are always resistant to change and paradigm shift. We're headed for a big one too. In a hundred years we went from the light bulb to computers, and technology is increasing exponentially. We are all finding our way in this digital world; we are pioneers of new social structures and community clusters. ADD is evolution's way of speeding us up enough to be able to handle a stream of constant communication bombardment and multi-tasking. I can stand here and see and taste the future. I feel sad sometimes for the generations and people that won't adapt. My father refuses to turn on a computer. He can't read my thoughts and feelings, and I think he would love to. I could print them out for him I suppose, but I won't. If he wants it bad enough, he'll adapt. I've offered to help him. There's nothing wrong with being a face-to-face, concrete and rooted in the real world of social interactions person. It's just that you're missing so much. The future is coming. Go read some Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow or Neuromancer by William Gibson. I am ready; plug me in. My father reads a ton of scifi and cyberpunk (as do I), but he chooses not to interact digitally as is his right. He also feels increasingly lost in this modern world, so I or Moo or someone else interfaces for him with the digital and orders the things he wants from Amazon. What a world of resources at his fingertips that he has closed himself off to. I love him; I will never abandon him, ever. Things are changing though and closing your eyes and denying the rain won't make you any less wet.

digital kisses blown on a pixilated wind--

Social networking tools give introverts opportunities to connect, lift careers

Instant Messaging for Introverts

Social Media: Where Introverts Can Shine