Apparently, people hate innocent fun so much, that they smack it down anytime it pops up, especially if it's on their little feed. Apparently, all of those people have a home on a particular website which usually prides itself on coverage of liberal and conservative news, even though it's just a sounding board for people who like to bitch about politics and the social media.
Apparently the Internet Police reside on Huffington Post (a website I usually enjoy). Apparently this is such SRS BIZNESS that it's being considered real news.
In which HuffPo has a Slow News Day, and decides to pick on people playing a goddamn game.
Yes. This article is the reason I posting this blog. This Slow News Day article written purely so that people can tell others that 1. They aren't allowed to post whatever they want on their Facebook, because MY PRECIOUS NEWS FEED!, and 2. If you do, you're obviously low on the totem pole when it comes to intelligence and IQ. I take personal offense to that, because I'm not stupid. I'm bored, and I work for 8 hours at home now, with a work computer, and my laptop. Apparently I should find more appropriate ways to entertain myself. Facebook is reserved for the utmost in culture, class, and tactful behavior, didn't you know. Amirite gaiz?
Yes?
No?
*blinks*
Last time I checked, Facebook was a, umm, social networking site. Yes, it's fun to post clever things like descriptively outlining your plans to plant your manager's face into their shiny oaken desk, or how you are so sick of the political zombie Sarah Palin (who isn't VP, and isn't even Governor of Alaska anymore, and is currently hunting Caribou in the Alaskan outback) should have died in the media a long time ago, but she perseveres, my friends, she perseveres!
But let's face it, Facebook is just another reincarnation of Myspace. All the twits, dunces, and camwhores that occupied the now convoluted Myspace (which slowly morphs into a Frankensteined version of Facebook each day like an aging D-list actress desperately trying to stay relevant *I'mlookingatyouKathyGriffin*), now occupy Facebook. For every social awareness Group on Facebook, you're going to find just as many (if not more) hate Groups. For every pro-choice liberal and rational conservative (yes, rational conservative does sound like an oxymoron, doesn't it?), you're going to find militant vegans and
If you're looking for a website where you merely want to post your boring life, and average-looking pictures of your special snowflake self, go find yourself a Twitter and post links to your mug from Photobucket. Really. I think if everybody on Facebook adopted a negative sentiment towards the games, it would be absolutely lifeless. I can only take so much of reading about my friends mundane lives, people. No offense to any of my friends, but when I can admit that all of you could probably go your entire life not knowing I made Pasta Casserole on Thursday night, and read one hundred pages of Bleach manga as I chowed down, then you can admit that you'd be a whole lot less interesting without some sort of meme or game going.
Really, there's only so much a person can post about within 425 characters. "I woke up with a crick in my neck, and had dreams about a geisha vampire trying to eat my Subway sandwich! ZOMG GAIZ!" That's probably the most interesting thing you're going to post that day, unless it involves losing a limb, somebody's dead or dying, or you're flattering me personally/going to give me neat stuff. Please feel free to flatter me as much as possible, as well. Outside of that, it becomes one big milky blur of blue, black and white where opinions are like that stash of liquor you keep on hand after a particularly long day when you're either too lonely to stay lucid, or too hateful of humanity to stay sober. Everyone's got one.
So yes, I like the flash games. I love playing Bedazzled, I liked Farmtown (obsessively, at one point), and I love memes and quizzes. I post them not because I think anybody's going to read and consider that 100 point quiz where I boasted about my favorite food, color, and whether I prefer my partner to have eyes or a purdy mouth (though I would prefer both, actually, or else sex becomes awkward), but because I usually sitting here at 5:07am, unable to sleep, because I have issues with hypochondria and paranoia, and sometimes I really should consider my Schizoaffective Disorder quite seriously due to the various voices telling me that if I fall asleep, half my teeth will, in fact, dislodge themselves from my gums and find a new home halfway down my throat. I need to post mindless ramblings on quizzes. I can only RAEG so much at the news articles I read daily. I can only get so angry at Obama's decision to give tax cuts to the rich for two years, while only extending unemployment benefits for 13 months. 13 months? Not only is that a big, sloppy Fight Club acid kiss on the cheek from the stupidly rich, but 13 months =/= 2 years. Either Congress can't count, or can't be fucked to care about your finding a job during this unstable economy where you have to obtain a Master's Degree in Physics and Sociology + five magical years of experience straight out of college just to get a job as a fucking secretary. Yes, because if I had the money to run out and get that degree, I certainly wouldn't be looking for a /job/.
So if you're one of those people who gets inconsolably pissed off every time they see a new Facebook game at play, please do make this realization. We're working people who are bored. Or we're unemployed people who have come from searching for a job all day, and are bored.
Bored.
Be part of the solution, not the problem.
If you hate it so much, devise a list of well-placed post throughout the day that tells us a story, and not just another post about what you're eating, or how much you love watching Psych. Start posting paragraphs from novels you love, so we won't have to resort to playing Wine Vineyard to pass the time. Perhaps you should just pretend to be somebody more interesting, like Charlize Theron or Sean Connery, and post snippets of how their life would play out?
Sean Connery 8:14am: Woke up this morning with a terrible headache. I proceeded to my bathroom, where I dislodged a small-gaged bullet which struck me the night before as I fought off French legion soldiers in my search for the bones of the 9th Knight of the Knight's Templar. On his bones is an encryption to decode the location of the Holy Grail.
Sean Connery 11:27am: I have removed my face putty mask, the one I wear for the media. All the men find it very stunning, and I wish to keep them all entranced while I continue my hunt. I do not wish to find the Holy Grail for it's sentimental value. Curse the damned cup, I say. But inside the cup is an encryption that leads me to the location of the city of Atlantis. My contacts will debrief me this afternoon. I hope to be in North Africa by sun up tomorrow morning.
Charlize Theron 3:16am: I found an ancient temple of Set while searching for a secret passage behind a large waterfall in Libya, when I encountered that damn Sean Connery! I knew he was after my lucky charms, lol! Anyway, we totally got into an insane gun fight, and I blew off his animatronic arm, and am now deep within the temple. Once I find the Holy Grail, I'll be able to locate the city, and all it's treasures myself. But I don't want the city of Atlantis, actually, no. There's an old scroll locked tight in a chest beneath an old statue of a nameless goddess, which reveals the secret on how to turn copper to silver, and silver into gold. Alchemy lives!
No, you don't want to do this to keep me entertained? Then why should I stop playing the meme games?
But no, seriously, Facebook is not to be taken so seriously that you can't see the woods for the trees, because those trees are usually stuck in some boring job, at some boring place, unable to make a break for it in order to actually live life sans soul-sucking labor (because money buys food, and food keeps us sane), so they have to do something. *deep breath* ...and quite frankly, I can only tell you so many times how good my day is going, and how I think most my customers are mindless gamer drones with excessive amounts of nerdrage encapsulated in a hard "mommy and daddy" spoiled shell.
I work at home now. My increased love of memes, quizzes and games is to be expected.
