Rancid Monke

Internet, we need to talk. The click-bait, the videos that could be replaced with two lines of text, the perpetual smug judgement from freelance web writers, the rampant hyperbole that makes everything amazing/shocking/terrifying!!!! Seriously…just stop it.

“This article/video will shock you!” – I have been roaming around the internet for 14 years now, I have seen the 2 girls with the 1 cup and much, much worse. Your video will not raise my pulse in the slightest.

“You will never guess what happens next!” – I have a functioning frontal lobe so I am pretty sure I can guess what happens next, and I bet good money it will either be sappy or stupid.

“Things only 90’s kids will understand!” – Ring pops and Nickelodeon TV aren’t really hard concepts to grasp. Maybe it isn’t that we don’t understand, maybe we just don’t care.

“9 things you shouldn’t do past 30!” – No one needs a website to tell them what to do past 30. If you made it to 30 without dying, becoming a member of a cult, popping out more kids than you could even remotely support or ending up in jail than odds are you have reached a point where you don’t need a website to decide if you are “too old to go clubbing” or “shouldn’t be getting a tattoo at your age because that is super gross”. If you are 30 and you are in a cult, jail, or a trailer full of your offspring then whatever advice they had has come too late.

“Things you are doing WRONG!” – An article tried to tell me I was eating sushi wrong once. I am pretty sure if it ends up in my face hole and gets chewed enough to swallow without cutting off my airflow than I have achieved the act of eating. I have been eating for 34 friggin’ years, I am pretty sure I got the gold star and “meets expectations” on this one a while ago.

“This will restore your faith in humanity!” – Ten minutes delving into YouTube comment sections will take it away again, so wasted effort.

“Here is a list of astonishing things, #6 will astound/amaze/shock/terrify you!” – Then why is it #6? Do you not know how a list works? If it is that astounding/amazing/shocking/terrifying then it should be at #1 and then #1 obviously needs to move down a little. Otherwise, what the hell was the point of bothering with numbers?

“Famous person does something AMAZING! [VIDEO]” – I made the bold assumption that it was a video of the famous person doing the amazing thing, instead it was a variety of clips of the famous person walking around at a red carpet event and having his picture taken while pressing the flesh. Meanwhile, someone narrated 2 paragraphs of this amazing thing he did without citing any reliable sources or providing anything approaching evidence. WHY DID THIS NEED TO BE A VIDEO?!!!!

“This video will change your life!” – All this video will do is eat into my precious data plan on my cell phone.

“15 amazing life hacks!” – 2 actually useful life hacks. 6 solutions to problems that no sane person actually has. 4 things that you could do but will make your home look 100% more tacky than it already does. 3 fixes that we already have perfectly useful consumer products for.

“Where are they now?!” – Probably the same place they were when a different site checked on them for this same article 2 weeks ago.

“Child stars gone bad!” – Lindsey Lohan is #1. Lindsey Lohan is always #1. Unless we are using this new-fangled math that you all invented, in which case she is #6 but she will astound/amaze/shock/terrify you.

“You won’t believe it isn’t photoshopped!” – Unless you are a proven reliable source or are providing some means of authentication then you are right, I won’t believe it. Just telling me I won’t believe it isn’t enough to make me doubt myself.

“Controversial “Skinny Pill” is taking the country by storm!” – Within a year of Viagra hitting the market most of North America knew to subtly inquire about boner pills from their doctor BY NAME. Every comedy act was legally required to have at least one reference to it, Bob Dole was trying to score a free lifetime supply by flogging it. If there really was a skinny pill then every morning news team in the country would be covering it and every home in North America would have a bottle by now. Instead they are trying to sell this through banner ads on sites about child stars going bad and amazing life hacks that someone stole off reddit. Speaking of boners…

“New all-natural pill will enlarge your penis!” – Now, If there was really a penis enlargement pill, I would have bought stock in that company by now. Having bought stock in the company I would be so rich that the size of my penis wouldn’t matter in the slightest. None of that has happened so we can assume your bottle of processed herbs would make a better salad than a penis enlarger.

Also, does it seem likely that I am particularly concerned about how “all-natural” your product is when I want to increase the size of my penis 10-fold? I am pretty sure I wouldn’t care how much mystery science and synthetic chemicals were involved if it actually worked.

Social Media, we need to talk

“95 percent of you won’t like/share this!” – True…that isn’t actually an incentive to like/share it though. 95 percent of people* don’t tie their genitals to the back of a moving vehicle either, doesn’t mean I should try it just to be different.

* Not an actual accurate percentage of non-genital tying population. Used for illustrative purposes only.

“Only my true friends…” – Stop. Stop right there. I don’t want to be friends with someone trying to guilt trip me over posting a status.

“Click like to show respect for our soldiers!” – Great news, we can shut down the veterans hospitals and stop all the widows and orphans payouts, they are all going to live on Facebook likes from now on.

“1 Like = 1 Respect!” – No, no it really doesn’t mean anything like that. No one stops by and hands over all this “Respect” they have harvested on Facebook to all the deserving teachers/soldiers/doctors/police/firemen/sex workers in the photos. If you respect these people you might want to try talking to them about it.

Rancid Monke