August 2009

  • Jesus Dommed Me... and I Liked It

    By msarko on 8/31/09 3:42am
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    I like to think of myself as a responsible grown-up. I eat my vegetables, pay my bills on time and keep my promises. But the Internet, she is pied piper designed to lead us respectable adults astray into a Never-Never Land of juvenalia and labored, mixed metaphors. So, when I stumbled across today's entry, I couldn't help but make it into fodder for an increasingly childish barrage of giggling misinterpretations. But that's what you get when you make a website called BibleLife.org/Bondage.


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  • Youtube Nation: The State of Cover Songs

    By msarko on 8/29/09 5:07am
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    I'm no scientist, but I'd estimate that if you stacked one closed laptop computer on top of another for each homebrew cover song on Youtube, the resulting pile would be enough to go from Earth to the moon and wrap around it approximately a kajillion times. Really, cover songs are the perfect fit for Youtube. At best, they can show off one's technical talents without requiring any real creativity and most of them fit within a three and a half minute window so pesky video editing isn't even an issue. While I would have been perfectly content to scour Youtube for the worst cover songs I could find, I decided to go a different direction this time around. Like so many things on the Internet, I don't think Youtube is inherently a force for frustrating, near-evil things, but rather a medium with a lot of potential that is wasted to the worst elements of democracy. Every now and then, it just feels more worthwhile to use it for an intellectual exercise than a means to merely ridicule the world and all who inhabit it. Note I said "merely" ridicule. I still plan on being a jerk, just not exclusively.



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  • Craigslist Files #36: The Gospel According to Craig

    By msarko on 8/26/09 6:56pm
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    In the beginning, the Internet was dark and void. Only some European scientist jerks had it and, lo, it was lame. And then there was Geocities and there was Angelfire and they were wrought with clip art and pictures of the cats of middle-aged shut-ins and, lo, the sites were lame. And then there were scanners and scanners begat digital cameras and digital cameras begat Internet porn. Porn sites more numerous than the stars in the sky and more frightening than the infinite emptiness of the spaces between the stars. Then, in the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, in the city of the saint named Franciso, Craig rose from among the bums on Haight. And Craig said unto the world, "I shall make a List" and there was a List.



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  • Degradation Station: Absolute Skinny

    By msarko on 8/24/09 6:09pm
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    I am, without a doubt, a judgmental jerk with no sympathy for the stupidity or general awfulness of others, but I still think I strike a fairly progressive stance on what people should and shouldn't be able to do in the bedroom. As long as it involves consenting adults, I suppose there isn't a problem. But then along comes porn to prove that I really am just some square traditionalist who can't tolerate near as much as he thought he could. The result is Net Insanity's Degradation Station. Today's subject: The skeletons on parade at NSFW--->Absolute Skinny<---NSFW



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  • Youtube Nation: Fight Tube

    By msarko on 8/21/09 4:36pm
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    Ya know what I really like? Hick fights.

    I should qualify this. I'm not some sadistic jerk who likes to watch people beating each other. I also don't get my rocks off laughing at poverty. But you can't deny that when most people fight, they look like total spastic morons and it's hilarious.



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  • Craigslist Files #35: CRAZZY RANDOM FUNNNN!!!! Edition

    By msarko on 8/19/09 5:23pm
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    a composite image of manlinessa composite image of manliness

    Horrible, filth-eating insects won't lay their eggs just anywhere. They need to find a place that is reasonably safe and will nourish their offspring on the day they hatch. Craigslist is a lot like a nesting spot, only instead of being a haven for arthropod pests it's the dank corner of the Internet where bad ideas go to flourish. Out in the harsh light of reality, no one, not even socially maladjusted idiots, think such ridiculous plans will actually work out for the best. But on craigslist, everything seems possible to a particular subset of humanity.



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  • Into the Abyss: A 4Chan Wilderness Adventure

    By msarko on 8/17/09 6:49pm
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    Many a night at the Explorer's Lodge I'd heard stories of that strange, exotic vista the armchair adventurer chaps had come to call "4chan". These tales were short but florid, undoubtedly tall but with the spark of plausibility. Never one to rely on the ramblings of others, I set out to uncover the truth of this ferocious enigma myself.

    "Cheerio, lads!" I called out and stroked my fabulous mustache, "I'm off to sort out this '4chan' business. Be back in time for tea!"

    I took a steeling belt of my bold, 16-year single malt and marched to meet my destiny.



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  • wii Swine Flu

    By lafeeverte on 8/17/09 10:41am
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    A new video game inspired by the Swine Flu pandemic has hit the internet! http://www.thegreatflu.com Where you, too, can play at controlling the flu pandemic of your choice, from spreading worldwide and causing unforseen death and devastation, like it is in real life. This game has been created by Dutch researchers to raise awareness and can only be played online, free. While the World Health Organization (WHO) denies intimate knowledge of the game, it does tell us that to date there have been 1,462 deaths and 178,000 cases of swine flu since April. 

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  • Youtube Nation: The "Best Week Ever" Audition Video

    By msarko on 8/15/09 6:10am
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    At least he's honestAt least he's honest

    While the past year of covering the worst crap the World Wide Web can provide has convinced me that the Internet is indeed the lancea sanctum in the Passion-battered body of our once respectable society, I can acknowledge that television is the cross. It was TV that turned whole generations into insatiable hogs of pop culture, television that pumped our heads full of catchphrases and numbingly enthusiastic sales pitches, and it was television that continues to convince the untalented masses that they can not only become celebrities, but that they deserve it. If it weren't for TV, vloggers probably wouldn't even exist.

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  • Craigslist Files #34: The EVENTual Collapse of Western Civilization

    By msarko on 8/12/09 6:37pm
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    Like an agonizing but therapeutic massage, I've come to look forward to every new entry of the Craigslist Files. It's not every young man who gets a weekly reconfirmation of his world view. It's one thing to browse the cornucopia of lonely, fruitless posts on craigslist. After all, there's nothing unique about stupid, misguided things on the Internet. But when I find equally stupid, misguided things in the real world, it's strangely comforting. If such ridiculous stuff exists in meat-space, it only stands to reason that there is a segment of the Internet representative of the good things in real life. The following posts were all taken from the Events page in the Community section, so most of them have some kind of real-world counterpart.



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  • Godfathers of Scam

    By msarko on 8/10/09 4:58pm
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    Look, ma! I got Photoshop!Look, ma! I got Photoshop!

    Scams are, by necessity, brief operations. The longer one exists, the more likely it is to be called out as BS. Internet-based scams are no different. Sure, it's practically impossible to police the web and it's all too easy to get information or even just money from people under the umbrella of complete anonymity the Internet provides, but that's still no excuse for carelessness. Net-based scams litter the various outlets of the medium and while they're all pretty indistinguishable from one another, it's unusual to see a single one stick it out for so long. That's why Pizza Boy Club is such an outlier.



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  • Youtube Nation: May I Have A Moment, Internet Atheists?

    By msarko on 8/7/09 5:45pm
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    There's a common sense rule about religion and the relative magnitude of annoyance of those who attempt to intellectualize it. Specifically, that the vast majority of people who talk about religion from any angle are insufferable twats. I'm no fan of any stripe of fundamentalism and I'm pretty sure that mega-churches will be the first targets of whatever superior alien species comes to dominate this planet. Still, I have no sympathy for proselytizing atheists, either. There's nothing more juvenile than soapboxing into the infinite echo chamber that is the Internet about how you're some kind of ubermensch who will inherit a bright future guided by almighty science and reason. Youtube is full of these people.



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  • Craigslist Files #33: Clusterpost

    By msarko on 8/5/09 5:08pm
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    Fantasy: Plays video games and thinks your t-shirt is hilarious. Reality: Multi-talented actress with a boyfriend.Fantasy: Plays video games and thinks your t-shirt is hilarious. Reality: Multi-talented actress with a boyfriend.

    I really want to believe that the Internet can be used for noble purposes. I want to believe it helps police catch more criminals than it creates, that it can balance out the ratio of idiots it indulges with at least a token population of people it properly educates. I want to believe that the Internet is responsible for both the end of the Republican party and the collapse of Ron Paul's presidential campaign. In the case of this week's Craigslist Files, I want to believe that the Internet is capable of bringing people together for positive social interactions. So, while I fully intend to mock the following posts from the Groups page, I'm also going to try to envision a scenario in which the post results in something good.



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  • Your Next-Door Neighbor is a Dragon by Zack Parsons

    By msarko on 8/3/09 6:27pm
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    There's nothing new under the sun nor is there in the glow of these infernal machines we call 'puters. I'll happily admit that everything I know about making fun of the Internet I learned from Zack Parsons. The man who has gone by the moniker "Geist Editor" on SomethingAwful.com for the past ten years is one of a lonely few Internet culture writers who manages to constantly retain his dignity, intelligence and sense of humor while doing his job. Though we Web writers want to see our online careers improve, we all not-so-secretly dream of the day when we can depart these strange shores for a prestigious life as print-only people. Zack Parsons is one of the few who may actually pull it off.

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