I am an internet professional. Not in that I can tell you jack shit about code or site marketing or how someone comes up with the name "Arianna Huffington" in life. Well, OK, yes, I can tell you about that. She was born in Greece and had a Greek name and then married an oil dude named Huffington. There's no way anyone in the world could have the last name of Huffington and be poor, come on. Anyway, I know my way around the ol' interhoot a bit, enough to call myself A Pro, because Arianna is not here to claim otherwise.
Today I am feeling both extremely irritable and magnanimous. Try having that day sometime. How I am going to make the most of this peculiar combination is to help you to irritate other people on the internet. The thought of this heightens my feelings of magnanimity and decreases my personal irritation, so I am going with it.
Often, in the impersonal land of text, whether it is via email, AIM, a message board, that fucking weird nuisance Twitter, Facebook or whatever, you find it difficult for words alone to completely express how you feel. There are many idiots on the internet, and if you are here, you have to deal with them. Small iconic representations of emotions ("emoticons" or "smilies") sometimes don't have the impact you wish to impart. This is where I let an annoying YouTube video speak for me. If something is too absurd, stupid, ponderous, or annoying for words, I just haul out some of my favorite videos, and I feel so much better knowing that the idiot out there in the great vast communications dumpster clicked on it, and was irritated, baffled, annoyed or otherwise bothered. It is a small win, but still good. Let us begin.
Internet Situation #1: You find yourself on a message board in a pages-long argument about which Star Wars character was the most powerful, and people are getting so heated up about it that they are throwing curses on the lives of peoples' pets and grandmothers and such. Post this, the height of DEHHHHHHHHHHHHH:
Internet Situation #2: A co-worker keeps emailing you about the horrible soul-destroying boredom that is her life, causing you to fall behind in your work and get a sore finger from clicking "DELETE EMAIL" so many times. Write a final email including this video, and say "This really expresses how I feel about all that you have been going through. Please turn the sound up on your computer when you play it, because I really want you to hear every bit. Thanks!":
Internet Situation #3: A guy trolling your Knitting For Moms website keeps sending you pictures of himself. Again, a note saying thanks so so much, and here is how I feel when I see another one of your photos, followed by this:
Internet Situation #4: Someone from high school keeps wanting you to add him on Facebook. You hate the guy and/or have no idea who he is. Send this video with the note ADD THIS:
Internet Situation #5: Someone posts a long frothy comment on your blog about how George W. Bush was a good president and is just misunderstood by Socialist Weirdos like yourself. Reply:
If I were rich and had a name like Blatherton or Snootiwell or Wealthyman, I could pass these suggestion on to Arianna Huffington, and she would use them, I bet. But I am not a Blatherton or Snootiwell or Wealthyman, so she is just going to have to find this by accident by Googling "diarrhea irritation pants" like everyone else.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman