Eurovision was last night and I had no internet

I've been without the internet for a few weeks now. And of all the moments of isolation, deprivation and complete and utter hopelessness I've endured over those few weeks, last night was the worst. For the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest was on TV, and I had no way to follow the Twitter stream. I had no way to contribute. My hysterical laughter and (at times) utter confusion was confined to the living room I now share with dearest Milly Bean. And while she humoured my yells and cackling laughter and couch-bound dancing (flailing), she clearly isn't as into it as I am. 

The songs! The choreography! The costumes! The crazy-ass camera movements! The absurd English-definitely-not-first-language lyrics! The narration! Oh boy oh boy oh boy, was it ever amazing. Personal highlights were (obviously) the absurdity of Romania's entry (which basically encapsulated all that is amazing/confusing about Eurovision), Greece singing about how "ALCOHOL IS FREE" (in kilts), and the GLASS CASE OF EMOTION displayed during Azerbaijan's "Hold Me". 

Side note: last night I learned Azerbaijan is a country. Is that bad? Probably. But perhaps, it's also testament to the wonder that is Eurovision - it's as educational as it is a glorious trip to a ridiculous Euro pop wonderland. Seriously though, watch Romania. It's probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Ever. 

If nothing else, Eurovision 2013 made it very, very clear that I need internet. And I need it soon. With each live Twitter update onscreen, with each hashtag and Facebook update, each photo posted and lol shared, I felt an actual pang of "GODDAMN IT, I WANT TO GO TO THERE". What does that say about me? I'm not sure. Probably something along the lines of "Fuck, you need to get out more" as a follow up statement to "Why do you care about these internet antics and Twitter feeds?" 

In any case, the situation is dire. I fear I'll say "hashtag" before statements, or prodding people in the forehead in an attempt to "upvote" whatever they just said. I'll start saying things like "UMAD?" or "gg" or "FTFY" in the IRL world. Maybe my face will actually turn into this: 

I'll give thumbs up to people before declaring "LIKE!" at them. I might even take to printing out my favourite hilarious pictures and sticking them up on poles along my street so I can make sure I'm filling the brains of people I don't know with images of adorable dogs and cats doing hilarious things. 

Or maybe I do a great many of those things already guys and I'm really really ashamed guys. 

I need internets

Anyway, the hunt for adequate internet (my standards have fallen) has intensified. 

Now, once more. With feeling. 

Announcement.

Hello friends. I'm back from Meredith, complete with lizard lips, sunburn, a lost beanie (RIP), and a slew of the most wonderful memories imaginable. At the moment I'm writing a bit of a gushing post about the three days spent dancing and laughing in a monster onesie, but it's slow going given the fact that I'm still beyond exhausted.

Having said that though, I haven't had a complete write-off of a Monday.

I've made a Facebook page for this ol' blog. I figure in this time of uncertain employment, I might as well try to be as constructive as I can. Usually that equates to watching way too much Downton Abbey and an obscene amount of Community, but as it turns out I do occasionally muster the energy to do something useful with myself.

Job-hunting? Ain't no one got time to job hunt. 

You can head over to the page in question, 'Like' it, and keep yourself informed and up to date with my posts and other writing and shitty drawings and other amusing rubbish like that. I've also been a bit more Twitter-tastic of late.

Go, go, go! Follow, like, share, etc. If you'd like.

"Internet Hero": The Continuing Adventures of Rufus

Sunday afternoon Billy posted the Rufus Tower video.

Sunday night my brother nodded sagely in approval after watching it. "This is cool. The guy have a channel?" That should have been an indicator of the potential for viral success, that and the fact that I kind of actually got slightly teary whilst watching it.

Monday saw the video rampage its way around Facebook, being shared by seemingly everyone who saw it.

Now it's Tuesday, and Billy just descended the stairs with a look on his face that seemed to be at a crossroads between confusion, excitement and pain.

"I just did an interview with The Herald Sun." He said.
My response was to flail around with excitement and tell him all about the love he was receiving on the cat-loving community of Reddit. Billy looked a little freaked out.

What started as a bunch of shares around Facebook has now turned into something "LEGIT VIRAL". And as someone who spends way more time on the internet than is healthy and probably cares way too much about internet happenings, I am most probably at a level of excitement that can only be deemed as "inappropriate".

He's featured on the Huffington Post, on Jezebel, as well as a bunch of Most Watched-esque sites, and something called Life With Cats. It was when I did my daily morning Reddit check though, that I very nearly spilled my cereal all over myself. Hell, Billy's even been dubbed an "Internet Hero". Who else can say that? That they're an INTERNET HERO. Not many people. Not many cats have stirred Actual Emotions in me either, so I'm gonna have to declare this video to be Extremely Noteworthy in the ol' Reb books.

In my last post I mentioned a project thing I did at uni in which I spent many hours of every night "researching" the way internet communities form and evolve and the ways in which content grows and spreads around different communities and environments. As someone who probably has a slightly unhealthy fascination about the inner workings of the internet, to see something grow and spread right IN FRONT OF MY EYES starring A CAT (also human) THAT I KNOW AND LIKE has been extremely exciting and reason enough to run around the building in a bit of a frenzy, spurting internet nerdisms all the while. Obviously. I kind of wish I was still at uni, so I could have a legitimate reason to keep writing endless postulating about internet communities.

Also, as an added piece of exciting ways the forces of the internet have been harnessed for good, Billy's brother's band Parallel Lions (formerly the frontman of Art of Fighting) is currently sitting at number two on Bandcamp's top sellers list. Not surprising, considering the song used in the ol' Rufus video is an incredibly pretty one.

Frankly I think I'm going to get all star-struck next time I see Rufus. He really is a very handsome cat.

I also think I'm going to find it difficult to get any work done over the rest of the day. The phone rings, and I'm going to have to be honest: "CALL BACK TOMORROW PLEASE. I have internet things to watch and observe."

EDIT: Here's a quick thing I had to write for Campaign Brief. Spruikin' the workplace, I suppose.

I have a bone to pick with 'Memes'

This is how I feel. 

There are plenty of things that I dislike. There are plenty of things I dislike with a great, great passion. Here are just a few things:

• When people comment on things with "THIS." and nothing else ... What does that even mean? Actually, I take that back. I know what it means, I just think it sounds stupid.
• When I download something and it's in a format I can't play it on my TV. 
• When I watch Freaks and Geeks and then I realise that beautiful, amazing, hilarious show ends.
• When people end posts with "That is all." ... I don't really have a reason for that one, it just gets under my skin and makes me want to say something snarky and troll-y. 
• The use of phrases like, "right in the feels" or "ALL OF THE x !!!" or "squee!" or referring to food as "noms".
  YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. USE YOUR WORDS. PLEASE. SAYING THINGS LIKE THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU ENDEARING. 

HOWEVER.
Above all else at the moment, more than my hatred for Tony Abbott or the fact that Neil Armstrong is dead yet Snooki is procreating, as a supreme indicator of my inability not to be a nerd, is my hatred for "Meme" pages on Facebook. Moreover, the fundamental misuse of the word "meme" makes me want to strangle something ... or to capslock yell into the vast expanse of the internet.

Firstly, my beef begins with this:
Completely disregarding whether or not the word "meme" is being used correctly, "meme" pages on Facebook are by and large intensely unfunny. They're not. They're. Just. Not. Funny. They're one big disgusting crime against anyone and anything that has ever actually been funny, ever.

See, I could forgive these "meme" pages if they at least elicited a tiny hint of laughter from me. Alas they do not, so alas I cannot. Of course, it may just be a matter of my sense of humour being of the slightly skewed, twisted kind and as such isn't in tune with what the masses might find tickle their funny bone. Or, it could be that the vast majority of meme pages are just ... really, really, rubbish.

Observe:

From the "AFL Memes" Facebook page.

This nugget of comic gold is from "Australian Memes"

Or, if you'd like, you could peruse the Australian Big Brother Memes page. The vast majority of the seemingly unstoppable fountain of "Meme" shit on my Facebook news feed is dumb, racist, sexist or all of the above. Generally, this all comes with a completely un-ironic slew of spelling mistakes. More about that in a moment though.

What is that I hear you asking? Hm, what's up? What are memes?

Well. These are memes:

Good ol' Bachelor Frog

I suppose what I'm getting at is that memes are like internet in-jokes. The joke is the same, you just change it a little. It doesn't matter if it's the "animal head with coloured background" type, or whether it's a written meme ("and my axe!"), what matters is that it was a funny that made enough of an impact to result in lots of people using it in a bunch of different ways. What I'm getting at is that the "meme" pages on Facebook aren't so much nuggets of hilarity that have grown and spread through the internet like wildfire until everyone knows what they are as much as they're just images with text on them. THEY'RE JUST IMAGES WITH TEXT ON THEM. And listen careful as I say this: using the right font does not mean that you're doing it right.

You might think it strange that I'm bothering to write about this sort of - admittedly, juvenile, stupid, and downright unimportant at best - junk. If you're aware of how much of a giant nerd I am however, it won't be strange in the slightest. I'd be the first to admit that spend way, way too much time on the internet. In fact, I recently was chatting to a friend, and he said the following to me:

"I don't know how you keep track of everything that happens on the internet. I'd find it fucking exhausting."

Well, it's not exhausting. Because I'm a giant nerd. I spend an unhealthy amount of time on Reddit. When Curiosity landed on Mars I alternated between staring at the screen in awe and running around in gleeful laps of the building. The most exciting thing that happened a few weeks ago was finding out the actor who plays Data on Star Trek and the scientist in Independence Day are ONE AND THE SAME (Brent Spiner). Out of all the characters on The West Wing I find Toby to be the most attractive.

Dreamboat.

More noteworthy than all of that however, is the fact that I managed to somehow end up spending the greater part of my last semester at university trawling through the seedy underbelly of the internet. Doing a research project on internet communities and how they evolve within different environments meant that every night was a constant stomp through the not-safe-for-life landmine-filled fields of 4chan. It was also a nightly sojourn in 2009-era Reddit. My mind is now permanently tainted with things I cannot un-see, and it's also well and truly cemented my position as a slightly snobby member of the internet.

I DIDN'T SPEND ALL MY WAKING HOURS IN THE DITCHES OF THE INTERNET TO SEE THE SANCTITY OF OUR MEMES TARNISHED.

But then I think, maybe I'm just a grumpy old man. Maybe I shouldn't get all up in arms when something on the internet evolves, which inevitably is wont to happen. Whatever. The whole "meme" thing has just done some next-level evolution, and there's nothing I can do about how un-funny I find it all except be disgruntled and storm off to watch some Adventure Time.

BUT.

There's having a slightly different sense of humour that a bunch of people I vaguely know and happen to still have on Facebook, and then there's being disgusted by offensive shit. It takes a lot for me to get up in arms about offensive shit on the internet, but I find that whenever morbid curiosity gets the better of me on Facebook, I always end up being all like, "I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THIS KIND OF WORLD". There's thinking, "You're doing it wrong as far as memes go" and there's thinking "the planet earth of the future is doomed". Hell, even if these meme pages are using actual meme templates, the fact remains that they're overwhelmingly unfunny.

It's incredibly disheartening that whilst "researching" for this little rant, I only had to go to two profiles to accumulate links and pictures. One of these people I happen to be related to, and the other is someone I had always thought had their head screwed on in fairly a logical way. What do I do? Do I tell them that they're doing it wrong? Do I delete them? Do I troll them super hard?

If you end up bothering to have a look at a few of those pages, I guarantee you'll be disgusted by at least a bunch of pictures. By that I mean to say that I couldn't even laugh at them for being so hilariously bad. They were just downright ... awful. Gross. Made me embarrassed. It also made me want to copy & paste a lesson in proper use of Your/You're into every comment box of every image.

Some of the pages I was just referring to that you might want to track down in your own Facebooking time include (I'll not be posting actual links here):

• Booties Boobies and Bodies
• Centrelink Memes
• Melbourne Club Memes
• Dumb, Drunk & Dirrrrty Bitches
• Australian Memes.

Look, I know that this is a futile rant. I also know that merely posting this sort of thing is practically like sending out an invitation to be trolled. "U MAD BRO?" ... well, yes I suppose. I love the internet, and I love observing the myriad ways the boundaries of political correctness are pushed in the name of the "lulz" (to use the parlance of our time). I myself am a little surprised that the Facbeook "meme" posts that have been clogging up my screen of late have sent me into such a state of anger.

I suppose when people are doing it SO wrong in so many ways without even having the decency to actually be funny OR USE APOSTROPHES CORRECTLY while being incredibly racist and sexist, I can't help but get angry. If you're doing none of those things correctly (humour, grammar, internet, decency), then chances are you are DOING IT WRONG on every count and you should have your internet license revoked.