4 Recurring Myths We Apparently Really Want to Believe
A lot of people like to think of the Internet as a savvy, cynical place where a girl can't even pretend to be slightly better looking than she is before amateur stalkers hunt down her other photos and "expose" the secret. (Secret: Girls do some things in between waking up and having photos taken.)
But there's a lot of pretty obviously fake stories the supposedly hard-boiled Internet will just swallow as easily as your grandma will fall for that "poor man from Nigeria that needs someone to help him get his money." Stories like:
#4.
Job Quitting Fantasies
The Internet jumps on elaborate job-quitting stories like a dog on sardines. (Dogs really like sardines. Try it if you don't believe me.) In August of last year, people went crazy about the "Whiteboard Girl," who supposedly stayed really late at work one day taking 33 goddamned photos of herself with whiteboard messages in order to embarrass her sexist boss and then quit. He allegedly called her a "HOPA," which was supposed to be "HPOA" aka "hot piece of ass." Now, she is remembered in most top Google searches as the "HOPA" girl, showing that there are more dyslexics out there than you would think.
Via Facebook
This was of course a publicity-generating hoax by a site that milked it for a ton of traffic (6 million visitors in 24 hours), and the actress playing the girl started getting calls from agents and scored interviews on CBS News and Askmen.com. After word got out that it was a fake, disappointed people started clinging on to the Steven Slater story instead.
A day before the HPOA/HOPA hoax, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater lost his shit at a difficult customer, said goodbye over the plane's PA system and exited the plane on an emergency slide. The plane had already landed, or it would have been more badass.
"I have the weirdest feeling like I've forgotten something."
People everywhere adopted him as a folk hero. They ignored the fact that releasing the safety slide was dangerous and kind of inconvenient to all the other passengers who weren't being assholes and cost the company tens of thousands of dollars, and the fact that he apparently had a substance abuse problem, and was suffering from depression.
Because that gets in the way of what we need this story for, and what we need all stories of this type for. We can't make a hero out of a guy who was making poor decisions because he was having trouble coping with his dad dying and his mother getting cancer and was drinking to deal with it. We wanted a quipping action-movie hero who made a clever bon mot over the loudspeaker and slid offscreen with a smirk on his face and a beer in his hand while the huffy passenger (probably a fat woman) watched in shock and the rest of the passengers applauded with a slow clap.
Via Infrogmation of New Orleans
Every urban legend needs a slow clap.
Because work can be a bitch in the best of times, and in these shitty times, more of us than ever are stuck in jobs we want to get out of in some kind of clever, movie-like way, but can't, because the only other choice is no job at all. Believing someone else did it is the next best thing. That or making up your own fake story and posting it on a forum.
#3.
Unbelievably Spoiled Brats
Another story no one can resist is the incredibly spoiled brat. Like this girl who got a red Saab convertible for her birthday when she totally told her dad she wanted a blue one, oh my God.
Despite the poor acting, everyone swallowed it hook, line and sinker, leaving comments like, "Die, bitch," and longer, more expansive and colorful versions of, "Die, bitch." The same sort of comments continued on a five-video follow up series under the account MacKenzieheartsu, supposedly created by "MacKenzie," the spoiled rich girl, to defend herself and continue the story of how her dad finally bought her the blue Saab, and how she was going to sell the red Saab on eBay for $9.99. The final video, which I guess nobody watched, finished with a punchline where MacKenzie explained there was an even better deal where you could get a Domino's pizza for $9.99.
Via Pål Berge
They didn't actually show the pizza in the commercial, smart move probably.
That's right, it was a Domino's viral marketing campaign, probably the first pizza marketing campaign to get an almost unanimous response of, "Die, bitch."
The male equivalent seems to be the "spoiled gamer freakout," in such staged videos as "Angry German Kid" (previously mentioned on Cracked) and the canceled WoW account freakout, where a "WoW addicted" kid was so distraught over having his account canceled that he waved his hands around as if he was trying to figure out what a person would do if they were really freaking out, sweating frantically about precious webcam seconds ticking away, and then finally took off his clothes and tried to stick a remote up his ass in an attempt to substitute effort for quality. A visit to the uploader's account shows a series of 13 increasingly fake freakout videos.
Via wafflepwn
Like his totally real audition for TheHappiestCompany.com
So why can't anyone see through these things? Because we don't want to. For the same reason people watch Jersey Shore or Real Housewives or follow the gossip about the latest drunk starlet (or football star) -- we need someone who is worse than us; who is more spoiled and entitled than we could ever be. That way, our minor little foibles of cutting in line or whining about a game on our favorite platform costing $59.99 instead of $49.99 or insisting that you "deserve" free downloaded music seem quite reasonable.
Sure, those behaviors sound kind of whiny when you put it that way, but when you compare it to "wrong color Saab girl," you're practically a saint!
"The school had already seen trouble on Cinco de Mayo the year before and had actually asked students ahead of time to not wear flag clothes this year."
Reply... yeah! How can anyone construe that as political correctness gone wrong?
So it's not acceptable pc (but maybe the writer believes it is?) for some religious group to ask that Halloween be called Autumn Festival and for them asking that people not wear demonic costumes on that day... but it's acceptable pc for a school to not allow kids to wear flag clothes on Cinco de Maya. One is acceptable pc and the other is a bunch of crazy religious types?
Both are political correctness gone wrong. Just because the rebellious teenagers were fighting pc by not being pc doesn't mean that the school's own attempt at political correctness was right.
Asbestos in tampons.OH MY GAWD it makes perfect sense since every corporation I know about would totally risk life imprisonment and destroying their company for a little more income!
Reply#5 -possession. horror-movies ftw.
ReplyMy dog just snarfed up 2 cans of sardines in about 3 seconds. I'll be damned. Dogs really do like sardines.
ReplyIt's fun to watch them eat peanut butter, too.
I'm not 100% convinced the bratty freak-out videos are fake. If I were caught on camera acting like a tantrum-throwing three-year-old, I'd be very tempted to save face by saying, "Oh, yeah, that was totally fake! I'm not an emotionally unstable idiot, I'm really a talented actress, and I pretended to freak out just so I could create a viral video. It obviously worked, because you believed that I'm a spoiled brat. Yeah. That's my story."
ReplyThere is a link right there telling you it was part of a viral marketing campaign.
I heard the Saab b***h was fake, but it was a Domino's ad? WTF
ReplyWhen your pizza really sucks, and your stock just went public, you've got to go to great lengths to sell both.
Whenever I see someone on the internet complain about their car paint, I eat a cardboard pizza. It's just common sense.
Very enlightening article, made me realize so many things which I was oblivious to. Thank you for your insight.
ReplySo the guy who exposed ACORN for the child prostitution ring-aiding scumbags they are is a "jerk?" Classy.
ReplyIf it helps, don't think of these facts as related. He's just a hideous toolbag *regardless* of his politically-motivated activities.
Not to mention his entire video was a cleverly spliced-together lie.
I totally got the email about rapists/serial killers and the crying baby. I can only assume the email originates from an infant serial killer who wants you to ignore the sound of screaming babies.
ReplyGreat job, Ms. Christina.
ReplyLove this article.
#2 keeps coming up because even without people making up stories, you see some pretty wacky real life examples. A couple months ago, the city of New York renamed a street Seven In Heaven Avenue in honer of 7 firefighters who died on 9/11. Work crews had barely finished putting up the signs before an athiest group sued, claiming that -you guessed it- the new name violated separation of church and state, and was discriminatory to non-Christians. For some reason they listed Michael Bloomberg, the City of New York, Chris Christie, and the entire state of New Jersey as defendents. Yikes.
ReplyI'm an atheist and I wouldn't sue over it, but have to admit it would annoy me a little for the same reason. They couldn't have gone with "Seven Heroes Avenue" or something like that?
Dumb, attentionseeking thing to sue for though.
Source please.
I love it when spoiled, bleach-blonde socialities get taken down a notch or two.
ReplyThey also do more cocaine than a New York stockbroker.
I remember the wow freakout video with the kid and the controller. I didn't know it was fake because I was too busy making the :o face followed by facepalming and then trolling 4ch
Replyjust saiyan
My mom completely believes #1. It's starting to get annoying. When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed out of the backyard, because everyone in the world was supposedly a 40-something man who lives in a dank basement and is a serial killer/pedophile. Now that I'm almost 18, it's because everyone in the world is a 40-something man who lives in a dank basement and is a serial killer who murders every young woman they see.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesSeriously, it's getting annoying. Yes I am a woman. Yes I am smaller than most women my age. But I am also fast, strong, smart, and refuse to take s**t from anyone. I know how to take care of myself, so I'm sure the big, bad world won't eat me alive.
/rant
You're completely safe from rapists. I haven't heard of any that carry a fork lift in their back pockets.
Not to mention that in the majority of rapes, the woman knows her attacker. It's not the weirdo lurking down the alley you have to watch out for, it's the nice guy down the hall that invites you in for pizza and slips a Roofie in your soda. That doesn't mean you shouldn't trust anyone, it just means you shouldn't leave your drink unattended. I know this from personal experience.
My mom was the same way. I don't have kids of my own, but I have nieces, and I can understand now why she was so over protective. Your mom's probably said this, too - "It's not you I don't trust - it's everyone else." - and it's true. There's plenty of danger out there for girls and women, no matter how strong, fast, smart or ballsy you are. She just wants you safe. Is it annoying as hell when you're 17? yes. Do you miss it when she's gone? I sure do.
I would say that's gone too far now though. People don't watch out for strangers because they've figured out that so much of it is alarmist bullshit, but there are still strangers in dark alleys and they're generally the most dangerous.
What is it with mothers and email forwards, anyway. My own mother loses it on a daily basis over these things. She'll call me with a, "I can't believe what's happening in this world. People are using midgets to lure kids into gangs to rape women if they flash their car headlights at them!!" conversation.
After many, many conversations, I did finally get her to start using Snopes to discredit these emails before she wildly sends them along to all her friends, but she still practically has a heart attack every time she opens one.
As a 40-something man who lives ini a dank basement and is a serial killer who murders every young woman I see, I find people like your mother terribly annoying.
id be more concerned about getting your ass kicked from all your attitude
Then again, the Hispanic kids in that school had taken the American flag & ran it up the flagpole *upside down* & *under* the Mexican flag. Even if these kids were being "in your face" about wearing American flags, one could *also* make the argument that they were reacting to the attitude they saw *from* the Hispanic kids.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAside from the first part, none of that is true
So pretty much only the Hispanic kids in that school part is true, then.
Citation please?
Good article. And it's written by a woman! I am thoroughly shocked. Who knew those creatures could write.
ReplyThat joke's starting to get stale. It was alright years ago, but now, not so much.
I have yet to actually see someone prove the "WoW freakout" videos are fake. They look like meltdowns associated with a specific mental disorder to me.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThere's a Tosh.0 web redemption where Daniel Tosh and Michael Winslow interrogated him, and he admitted that they were fake.
That bit on Tosh.0 was quite obviously tongue in cheek. What do you think is more likely, that a kid has, for no real reason, filmed over 20 videos of his brother acting like a loud, destructive a*****e, sometimes in public, and kept everybody that appears in those videos quiet about them being faked, or that his brother really is just a loud, destructive asshole?
@SickBoy
Having seen the videos...the first one.
Wow, really? I am siding with the kids. They ARE being patriotic. The only people who will be offended by it are the Hispanics who aren't here legally ( non-citizens ). Besides, if kids are suspended for supporting the act of keeping America, America instead of Neo-Mexico, they may as well be suspended for saying the pledge of allegiance. After all, that's American on Cinco De Mayo, right?
Reply Hide All See All 13 RepliesI, for one, am against the illegals coming into the US. They are taking jobs that Americans need. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons for the recent unemployment spike. (No, Lord Obama didn't make it better, it has actually reached the second highest point it has EVER been)
I know what people are going to say: "Ignorant people like you have been fighting against immigrants for years! Its time to move on, after all, you wouldn't be here if it weren't for immigrants."
Yeah, except back then, they had an interest in making at least minimum wage, they had in interest in learning English, rather than forcing everything to be bilingual, they had an interest in actually doing the paperwork needed to be an immigrant rather than slide in and be off the gov'ts radar.
I'm sure your subtle use of name-calling and anecdotal "facts" will be taken seriously, and will change minds.
I'm finding it hard to blame the illegals for unemployment. They're just doing what makes perfect economic sense given their options. The employers who hire them for less than minimum wage and virtually no risk of legal retaliation should they decide to abuse them further are doing the same.
The difference that gives me greater distaste for the latter than the former is that illegals are looking at a choice between utter destitution and slightly less crippling poverty, while employers are sacrificing principle to reduce labor expenses. So how about we save some of that hate for the employers? After all, if there were no illicit job market waiting for them, so many immigrants would not bother to enter the country illegally in the first place.
Here here to Anariashki, the voice of reason.
I'm sorry Reki3, but I read your comment and hear nothing but xenophobic rambling.
The thing I cannot get past in any illegal immigration debate is that you take anyone in the world and if you gave them the choice of living in Mexico or illegally immigrating to America, every damned last one of them would choose the latter. I don't think you people understand that the illegals aren't doing it because they want to piss you off. They're doing it because that's what makes sense for them to do. Given the choice between living a better life in America, and abiding by laws with questionable morality given America's history so as not to make conservatives screech and whine like the f**king little spoiled babies they are and stay in Mexico living in an unbelievable s**thole with their families all their lives....hey, I don't think I'd care too much about your precious f**king sensibilities either.
You people really need to look at it from the perspective of an illegal immigrant instead of just going straight to "How does it affect ME?" and never moving past that like you f**king a*****e hardcore GOP'ers do on every single f**king issue. Yes, it can suck for us in some ways. No, they really don't have much of a choice. Accept it.
Eh, incredible how the immigrants are never at fault. Poor people, just trying to live a less miserable life, at expense of EVERYTHING ELSE. Get a grip.
Babbling nonsense about names when they're a basic part of language three-year-olds can get tends to make you dumber than those three-year-olds, and ironically enough to make you politically correct, which, despite this thing trying to tll that it's totally made up, and that there is no such as political correctness, or that it's not really THAT bad, or some s**t that ignores the fact that all of that stuff, wether it's PC, wether or not it's called PC, or some other stupid bulls**t is still going to be more or less about abuses of emotion and language, and cause people problems, which is why it isn't (and/or shouldn't) be as easily dismissed as otherthings on this list.
By the way, Reki3 didn't even use names more than a little bit, so someone's just making s**t up there, and deserves t5o be beaten (come on, shouldn't you be more worried about the smegging beating than a name, which still is a basic part of language? You can explain why it's okay to raise a goofy f**kin s**t over a name, or why being offended is all that intelligent, but it's definitely gonna be a challenge, and like seeing James Randi's million dollar claim s**t thingie, no one can even come close to doing it. Please anyone handle that s**t better, at least unlike attacking names or some other part of language, you could then actually use the language to COMMUNICATE (something that's ridiculously lacking in this very real world bull of bulls**t that goes beyond words (ARRRGH THAT IS A RUDE I SHALL DISMISS THIS OUT OF HAND EVEN THOUGH IT ALL SEEMS PAINFULLY HELLf**kING ARBITRARY!Q!!)
"Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation…and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain…Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it…I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties...In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious."
Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
24. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
"The only people who will be offended by it are the Hispanics who aren't here legally ( non-citizens )."
Really? 'Cause I'm Hispanic, a legal citizen of the USA. I was born here, my parents were born here, and my sister were born here, and we all get offended when people act like a*****es and then hide behind so-called "patriotism."
Maybe I learned it differently than you, but I was raised to believe that patriotism meant love of your country, not hatred of everyone else.
There's also the fact that illegal immigrants are doing jobs Americans WON'T DO. No Americans are going to do difficult manual labor for a ridiculous amount of hours for less than minimum wage. But without people doing those jobs, the economy would fall apart, because the industry just doesn't make enough money to pay minimum wage. Illegal immigrants are a vital part of this society, and though no one would say that was a good thing, it's true.
I like how you assume that as Latinos, they must be illegal.
But politics aside, here's the thing: they're not patriots. They're just jackasses using patriotism as a baby blanket. You want a political incorrect equivalent, it's like someone who's a terrible, a*****e employee getting fired and then claiming it's racism.
There's a kids' novel with this theme - basically, a high school kid starts humming the national anthem during the Pledge of Allegiance and when his teacher tells him to be quiet, he accuses her of being unpatriotic. It eventually becomes a big national news story about a patriotic student and his un-American teacher - she gets fired, he gets his fifteen minutes of fame, but deep inside, he's feeling guilty as hell because he knows that he was just being a little brat trying to piss off his teacher for kicks and it had absolutely nothing to do with patriotism.
So, regardless of where your politics lie, you should just be freakin' pissed at some pissy little kids abusing the public's patriotic sensibilities so they could get away with their public dick-waving.
IRONY:
Showing repect for a flag by drapping over your fat sweating stink stained body and dragging it around through the muck all day to spill s**t on.
I don't see the point in flag buring just give it to an American and they will disrespect it and call it patriotism.
The Illiegal worker thing is because of USA businesses it got nothing to do with the immigrints themselves. Australia has a Higher proportion of illegal arrivals but don't have those issues (we have others) because of regulation, but apparently making business employ citizens and not illegals is Unpartiotic or something as introducing 'regulations' to make things fair for citizens means your a communist. At least accoring to FOX.
I really wish there was something I could click on to view the lowest rated comments. Sure I enjoy funny, well thought out comments, but it's so much better reading stupid comments when the author thinks they're being intelligent.
I don't need to see spoiled kids on the internet who aren't grateful for what they get, because I go to a private school where I see it all the time.
ReplyOh, and the WOW thing was fake, REALLY?!?!?!
Yeah, the guys at Tosh.0 interviewed him and he said they were fake.
Gariandos - how did you miss the sarcasm in that "REALLY?!?!?!" I know tone doesn't usually carry through in text, but this one is pretty obvious...
Re #2: Them censoring out the crosses and such reminded me of something. Among all the other bulls**t things they censor out of j*panese cartoons, Tokyo Mew Mew's American incarnation had a lot of editing just to get rid of crosses. Apparently even though crosses are everywhere, they thought people would be offended at the concept. Crosses were edited off churches, and Mew Zakuro's cross shaped weapon was edited to be a stick.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesDon't even get me started on what 4kids does. That pissed me off as well.
But yeah, that part reminded me of that too.
I'm told that DIC edited the lesbians out of Sailor Moon, to add to your list of complaints. Very disappointing!
I believe they also tried to have a manji symbol removed from the main characters clothing in Hiroaki Samuras Blade of the Immortal. Manji is Japanese for eternality, and the symbol, if flopped resembles a swastika, which people foolishly equate to Nazis,
"Wow, we managed to go through the whole episode without a swastika joke!"
"What are you talking about? It's an X"
"But in the original Japanese-"
"Dude, it's an X."
At least it isn't Pokemon, they'd just claim the cross was a f-cking jelly donut.