Saturday, January 31, 2009

25 Things I Hate About You

Stop it. Don't fill it out. It's dumb. YOU know you're tempted. Don't do it. Yes, I'm talking about the "25 Things" craze that's sweeping Facebook. For those of you who don't know, the 25 Things is a list of 25 things about yourself that your friends might not otherwise know. Then you tag 25 friends of whom there is some significance in your list for each of them. Then they write a list. This is called a chain letter. For any of you who've ever passed one on, A) I'm still waiting for that email technology check from Microsoft, B) I think that the GAP really IS going to give everyone who passes it along $100, and so forth.

It's kinda like that movie, "10 Things I Hate About You", where they took "The Taming of the Shrew" and "updated" it for a modern teen audience. And by "updated" I mean, butchered The Bard's words, dumbed down the plot, and generally made life hell for me and anyone else who was forced by their then girlfriends to watch it. The 25 Things is kinda like that. Only shittier.

I can see how a girl would want to fill it out. It plays right into how they interract with friends. Observe: Carol ShamWow fills out her list...

"23. I still don't eat anchovies" This is an inside joke shout out to Carol's best friend from high school Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout (who finally took the garbage out- and NO this is not about you SISTER, who by the way, I used to think was Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout, and if you read HER 25 things, you might know why). Back when they used to be friends, they were at some pizza place and a really cute guy asked them if they wanted the rest of his anchovy pizza. They said yes of course, and then proceeded to try to eat it while they flirted with him. Hehehe! And instead of actually reconnecting with her old friend SCSS, Carol just tags her in her note, and the friend whom she hasn't seen in years is alerted when she logs onto Facebook. Now she feels obliged to A) respond to the shout out by posting something like, "Awww remember how cute he was? OMG! Did I tell you I'm an amputee now, and also I train loose seals?" And then proceeds out of some guilt process to write her own 25 things, so the chain isn't unbroken.

Next Carol— and keep in mind, she has a serious dyslexia issue, so don't make fun of her for writing the list out of order—writes, "14. I totally had an NKOTB poster on the backside of my closet in college. My roommate never knew!!" And then tags the roommate. Do you see how this works? This way, all the friends feel validated, and Carol ensures that people with whom she has a passing (at best) intimacy with feel as though they know her REALLY well now.

Dudes... I dunno. I don't know why dudes would ever fill that out. EVER. I tried tonight to come up with a list. I came up with 2 things.

So I present, The 2 Things. Don't pass this on. Don't do anything, really.

1. I fucking hate these sorry and mind-numbingly boring trivialities that the masses find entertaining. Grow a fucking synapse.

2. Fuck you for tagging me in this shit.


I feel like that pretty much sums it up. So please, please, PLEASE, America (and notice I used the Oxford comma, which I was instructed in school was NOT proper, but I've come to realize later in life, is, technically, perfectly proper, technically speaking), STOP THIS 25 THINGS THING. Are you really going to turn Facebook into a giant fucking chain letter? Really? Don't go down willingly... that is how we lost Myspace and Friendster... Are we all gonna have to join some new cheesy social networking site? FUCK.

/ rant

5 comments:

Mafoo said...

You know there should be a law, similar to Godwin's Law, that states that as the popularity of a social networking site grows, the probability of it descending into a childish fucking zombie stew of chain letters and unsolicited quizzes approaches 1. There are two on my Facebook home/feed/whatever page right now and they make me want to die a gang-rape-related death at the hands of the snorks.

I propose this. Downvote anyone who posts that shit. Doesn't matter if it's your best friend. Click the invisible - but oh so useful - "Less about X" tab next to the item. New rule Facebook, you post annoying bullshit, you get downvoted.

Mafoo said...

ps Kate, this means you too. don't do it!

Selly said...

Amen, my friend, Amen...

Kate said...

a) gurf's blog is WAAAAY too angry.
b) reading this blog was not any more enlightening/entertaining than any of the lists of 25 things that I have read.
c) I have thought about writing 25 things but am avoiding it for the same reasons I don't have a blog. but...
d) you guys bitching about it is one of things that just might make me do it.
e) p.s. mafoo, downvoting me is not a threat. I'm all for reading less about my friends on the interwebs and more for hanging out in person. boooyah! (that said, I am a HUGE fan of the "less about X" feature and use it often, for things far more annoying that the 25 things)

Mafoo said...

'member when K8 was all about chain letters all of a sudden?