VeteransHelping.org: The Little Website That Couldn't

who? who gave this site a seal of approval?

I write a humor blog about the Internet, but I'd like to think that doesn't make me a hypocrite when I say that I want the Internet to be more respectable. It seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time for this medium to be taken seriously in the wider world despite its obvious contribution to everything from international commerce to politics. It's reductive and just plain wrong to believe that the presence of porn (ahem, lots of porn) and other kinds of human absurdity automatically makes the Internet dismissible. After all, there's arguably more smut and dreck among the printed word than affecting or thought-provoking literature, but we don't think of books as being inherently less respectable than other media. No, if anything keeps the Internet branded an intellectual pariah, it's the sheer laziness of sites like VeteransHelping.org.

The intent behind VeteransHelping isn't the problem. I'm not some lethally cynical bastard who gets his jollies ripping on a seemingly genuine charity created to help needy war veterans. The many and varied issues with VH.org have to do with the sheer horror of its site design. When I see this many mistakes and bad decisions happening at once, I've got to ask myself whether or not I'm looking at some kind of prank.

Let's talk for a moment about clip art. Back in the ignorant infancy of the Internet, clip art was a way to gussy up one's website without putting too much stress on laughably weak modems. It never looked good and it had all the gravitas of a scratch-n-sniff sticker. Today there is no reason whatsoever for clip art to exist on any serious website. VH.org has more of the stuff on one page than I've seen in a year of actively searching for terrible sites.

But there's something ludicrously delicious about some of the clip art on VH.org. The creators/compilers of the site seem to have actually doctored a lot of it, stacking clip art on top of other clip art and superimposing photographs onto incongruous images. Take the following two:

This is a composite piece you'll find at the bottom of the site's front page. Readers, you are looking at clip art critical mass. I detect no fewer than four and as many as six different pieces all schlupped together in a single item. The flag and silhouettes are probably of the same image, but the loaf of bread and the mounted eagle head are definitely foreign entities. And the cross? Judging by the conspicuous dots on both of the horizontals, I have a suspicion that Jesus was erased from this picture. The irony of that possibility is more dense than a decade-old fruit cake.

But this gem simply cannot be beat in terms of intense cognitive dissonance. First of all, I have never understood why Christians prefer to depict their loving savior as a scary, otherworldly creature. I don't know if the Jesus is part of this image or if he was pasted into a screen capture from an apocalyptic anime, but this is some nightmarishly surreal stuff. And then the kids at the bottom of the stairs. Really? Some bowl-cut pre-teen and his little brother just posing in front of the second coming? I can't escape the idea of some balding Midwestern dad saying, "Ooh! Boys! Jesus is descending to the land of the living to bring about the end of times over there! Quick, let's get a picture! Alright, say 'Revelations'!"

The entire site is like this. VH.org, for all its good intentions, piles awful on top of awful in so many ways it would take me weeks to go over all of it. From the inappropriate virtual shrine to Roy Rogers to the photo images that seemed coded to appear broken, to the unstoppable music that plays on most of the pages... it may just be the worst site I've ever seen. That it belongs to an otherwise respectable charity is both hilarious and heartbreaking.

Amount of Time Likely to be Wasted: A half hour at least. So many silly pictures and midi songs, so little break time during the work day.

Likelihood to Result in Arrest in Real Life: Practically nil. Unless VeteransHelping is a scam, I'd say they're clean.

MCDR: If you've just gotta donate to help some veterans, go here and pretend that barely functional imbeciles don't have access to CSS.

Internet Depth by Preposition: In. VH.org has outside aims, but its mess of clip art, sound intrusions and ugliness can only exist online.