Know Thyselfie

Somewhere during my career as a writer (if, indeed, having a couple of blogs and a few minor published works can actually be considered a “career”), I missed the part where you learn to write posts or columns or anything under 500 words. Brevity, concision, or succinctness — whatever it is, I don’t have it…heck even at the beginning of this sentence I used three fancy words where one normal word probably would’ve sufficed. I think the two reasons for this are that 1) I really only write things that I am passionate about, and am therefore more likely to have lengthy, thought-out opinions on; and 2) I am constantly anxious about being misinterpreted in my writings —especially on the internet — so I go out of my way to add clarity even if it means being superfluously descriptive.

But I digress.

So anyway what’s the deal with the selfie? Is there anything more simultaneously loved and loathed than the selfie?

classic selfie example

 

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19 Reasons Buzzfeed Sucks

Buzzfeed sucks. If that statement offends you, you’re what’s wrong with America. If you don’t know what buzzfeed is (count yourself one of the lucky few), it’s a self-described “snapshot of the viral web in real time.” Basically what that translates into is a bunch of ADHD, zero-thought-required, pandering bulls*** (asterisks make it classy). It takes statements so generic and effortlessly digestible that they barely qualify as original thoughts, wraps them up in some easily google-able pics, tosses in some cat .gifs and voila, one internet. At best it’s a topic statement without the accompanying paragraph, at worst it’s an endless stream of tabloid-magazine cover headlines with even less intellectual content. If mental stimuli were diagrammed like the food pyramid, buzzfeed would be the “fats and sugars” section way at the top that’s supposed to make up only the tiniest fraction of your daily food intake…but just like the actual food pyramid, Americans refuse to exert even the smallest amount of willpower and instead consume as much as they can (“What if we put ice cream IN the rootbeer so I don’t lose those precious seconds between taking bites of dessert and slurping down soda! What do you mean diabetes is a thing?”) and as a result our mental obesity is almost as out of control as our country’s physical obesity (though less immediately outwardly visible).

such buzz, very feed

Buzzfeed capitalizes on all the worst traits of modern quantity-over-quality internet culture and contributes nothing of its own. This is evidenced by the fact that the most popular posts on buzzfeed’s site are their arbitrarily-numbered lists. Lists of what, you ask? Of everything (the 15 most ridiculous world leaders of all time). Of anything (20 reasons why going to the gym is a huge waste of time). Of nothing (20 doodles that show what we’re all thinking during business meetings). Essentially buzzfeed thinks so little of its readership that not only does it acknowledge the shallowness of its audience, it actually highlights it and throws it back in the face of that selfsame audience…and they don’t care! If a real life person condescended to you like that, you’d punch them in the genitals, but because a website has the audacity to publish the “51 Colorful and Delicious Ways to Eat Spring Vegetables” (I’m sorry, do you mean SALAD? Are you just describing what a salad is in 51 variations? Look man, I am a tax-paying adult, you can just say SALAD, ok?), you’re all like “Wow my three favorite flavors: spring, delicious AND colorful; and because it has vegetables in the title this counts as my workout for the day! More Ovaltine please!”

The Five Stages of When a Pretty Girl Talks to You

Spring is in the air, which means attractive women will be popping out of the woodwork left and right in your everyday life. Now don’t worry, most of these hot girls won’t even notice you, and the ones that do definitely won’t want to interact with you…however, the law of averages says that at some point a cute gal is going to need you for something (like doing her math homework or giving up your place in the movie theater line so her and her friends can see Spring Breakers, etc.), so in order to give you a fighting chance when that situation arises, I’ve written a brief guide to assist you…

Wait…why is she looking over here? Oh God, her mouth is making sounds at me, OH GOD SAVE ME!

The Five Stages of When a Pretty Girl Talks to You:

Why Latin is the Best Language

Someone said to me the other day (or maybe today or maybe not at all…honestly does the setup really matter?) that the best language is English. These are the sort of deep-thinker conversationalists with whom I am forced to interact. Then they made the mistake of asking me what I thought the best language was. What a boron!

(Boron is a word I made up that means boring moron — I invented this word by combining the words boring and moron. Boron is also the chemical element of atomic number 5, a nonmetallic solid/metalloid, if you’re ever on Jeopardy)

They’re not dumb for asking that question, they’re dumb for not already knowing the answer! Everybody and their step-brother from Daddy’s first marriage knows that there is only one best language (duh, that’s what “best” means), and that language is: Latin.

What’s that? You aren’t 100% sure that Latin is better than any other language that has ever been invented or will ever be invented (probably by JRR Tolkien or more likely by George RR Martin because Tolkien died in World War I fighting off the Nazis and syphilis)? Well take a second to pull the suppositories out of your ears and the Q-tips out of your ass, because you’re about to absorb something more useful than the Plan B you took with breakfast this morning.

For starters, Latin is a dead language — meaning the Italic Latins and Ancient Roman civilizations that spoke that language went extinct probably ten or more years ago. But hold up, even though native Latin speakers are as extinct as the dodo bird or the commercial market for dodo bird leashes that I invested heavily into in the 90s, people all around the world STILL KNOW AND SPEAK THAT LANGUAGE. That means Latin is actually an undead language, a zombie dialect, and that already makes Latin badass enough to be the main bad guy in the next season of The Walking Dead.

…Why won’t you die already?! What kind of language are you??

 

Happy Fourth Twitterversary! Twenty-Five Tweets for You!

I started my twitter four years ago today, to impress a girl. March 12, 2009. Don’t ask me why I know that. Actually ask me why I know that. I know that because for a while, if you went to your profile page on the twitter app for iPhone, it told you what day you joined and I have a photographic memory. Probably. My first tweet was the exceedingly clever and original: “is trying to figure out what the deuce twitter is for…and how it’s different/better than facebook status updates.”

You’re impressed, I can tell. And now here in March 2013 (and 16,567 tweets later), I’m proud to say that I still have no idea how it’s different/better than facebook status updates, but for whatever reason it’s a lot of fun, so I keep at it.

As a treat to myself disguised as a treat to you, I’ve selected some of my favorite tweets from my first year of tweeting, all the way back in 2009, to share here as an twitterversary present. Enjoy them or dis-enjoy them, it’s up to you. And if you feel so inclined, follow me @ocdustino — sometimes I tweet things that are funnier than my first tweet, if only slightly.

And how did I end up with this as my twitter background picture? No one knows, and more importantly, no one cares.

The Highlights of 2009, in tweet form:
Oh you know, just sitting next to Alec Baldwin, no big deal. yep, this is LA. — April 26th (the first of literally thousands of the douchier things I’d tweet)

I wonder if my spray-on sunblock will cancel out the effects of my spray-on tan? — May 1st

I don’t care too much for money…which is a good thing since apparently it doesn’t care too much for me, either. — June 1st

Subway lady messed up my sandwich order 6 different times — I didn’t realize the sandwich artists were taking so many artistic liberties these days. — June 4th

sometimes it gets boring making out with hot girls…solution? make out with EVEN HOTTER girls. I should be president of awesome. — June 18th

I left my heart in San Francisco…but I left my genitals in Las Vegas. — June 27th

I’m celebrating 4th of July just like my forefathers did: oppressing minorities and claiming someone else’s land as my own. — July 4th