Ramblings and Musings Ten – Best Groups and Fanpages on Facebook

I spend most of my time on the internet on facebook. I’m on it right now.  Pretty much if I’m on the internet doing anything, I have facebook open in another window. It’s devastating to my productivity levels. I also often click on ‘appear offline’…. and occasionally this reason is to make people think I’m on facebook less than I am. I am not proud of any of these things, but they are facts.

There are features on facebook called ‘fanpages’ and ‘groups’. Most are moronic or promotions for businesses. Some, however,  are fantastic. As you can probably tell if you’ve read a single one of these posts, it’s usually the funny ones that get me, however the clever ones or astute ones also get me. In particular, the ones that reflect what I think but I didn’t realise there are some other twisted souls out there with similar outlooks on life/philosophies/mental imbalances/fetishes. I’m going to take you through some of the cream of the crop of each of these. It’s up to you if you ‘join’ or ‘like’…. but I’d recommend it.

Top 5 Groups

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Top 5 Pages

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Until next time.

Ramblings and Musings – What animals on the internet mean to my life.

An Animal on the Internet

As some one who has spent approximately 20 years of their life living on a farm, I think it’s fair to say that animals have played and continue to play a fairly significant role in my life. They continue to do so, but in a number of different ways.

It is at this stage of this article that I would like to make it categorically clear that not only am I an animal lover, but I object to unnecessarily cruel treatment of animals. I’m not a vegetarian, but I think it’s fair to say that I believe that animals should with dignity and respect.

It is stage of the article, that I shoot my credibility on this issue to pieces. When it comes to animals on the internet, I shockingly pretty much view them exclusively as forms of entertainment, and while I certainly object to seeing them harmed unnecessarily, I have no qualms whatsoever with animals being put in situations that are disrespectful and frankly humiliating.

I am not proud of this. In fact, I’m more than a little ashamed. I do not pretend that I can justify this on any moral grounds, other than one of pure self-interest.

However, I do question whether this is so wrong of me? I will let you, my two readers, decide. The following are examples of animals on the internet which could at worst be perceived as being treated cruelly, and at best perceived as unusually.

I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

Pictures:

 

And the following two camel-related videos, that deliver exactly what they promise:

 

OK, so I think I’ve successfully convinced my last remaining readers to never read again, and so I’m pretty much just writing this to myself. Anyway, I’ve decided to leave on a note that I feel would make anyone smile:

Until next time.

Ramblings and Musings Eight – Why anonymity is not ALL bad.

It’s fair to say that I don’t give 4chan the most glowing or endorsements on this website. Whilst not saying it in so many words, I have attempted to portray the site like how it is described on urban dictionary:

‘A meeting place and breeding site for the utter dregs of humanity. A festering polyp in the dieing colon of society.’

‘The sphincter of the internet.  Where integrity goes to die.’

‘An image board in which jaded and cynical internet users compete to see who can be the biggest asshole. ‘

‘If you’ve ever seen something on the Internet that made you contemplate suicide , it probably came from 4chan–and even if it didn’t, you can be sure someone posted it there at some point… and people there LIKED it.’

‘The most fucked up, pedophile-infested website on the internet.’

There is a lot to dislike about 4chan, and I’m very clearly not the only one who feels that way. In it’s simplest form, 4chan is a  image board on the internet in which users can post with anonymity. It’s a pretty big deal, as it gets over 700,000(!) posts a day. It was designed for users to discuss anime and Japanese cartoons/comics, and appears to be pretty much as close to unregulated as a site can be. In particular, the random board, or “/b/”, is notorious for being rife with images of child pornogarhy, gore images and just general stupidity. And when I saw stupidity, I mean real stupidity. It is not clever or funny.

Users, or /b/tards as they affectionately refer to themselves, seem to have a mixed view of themselves. Some seem to see themselves as ‘Anonymous’, which refers to the actions of many online users acting anonymously towards a common goal. This has resulted in outcomes attacks on epilepsy websites designed to cause seizures and migraines in those suffering from the disease to the tracking down of information that led to charges being laid against those who had committed cruelty to animals. Anonymous has also organized worldwide protests against Scientology and hijacked a poll on a Justin Bieber webpage to see that the young star’s next tour would be to North Korea.

So it is clear that 4chan is made up of  number of very different people who see themselves in different ways. It would seem that some see themselves as:

While others see themselves as:

While the rest of us sort of see it as:

The main criticism of 4chan is that it pretty much takes what is wrong with being anonymous, and takes the problem of unaccountability and runs with it. REALLY runs with it. The most obvious problem is that is known to host pedophiles and share child pornography, but to say that there is nothing else wrong with the site would b to be too kind to it. I am going to do something now that I never thought that I would do on this blog, and that’s link you to the /b/ board of 4chan. Now, I am also warning you that those who are easily offended should not follow this link, and those of you aren’t probably shouldn’t follow it either. The point of me linking this is to illustrate to you how offensive this site is. Simply stroll from the top of the page down to the bottom. If you are not in anyway offended, press reload. Do this on the minute for the next 5 minutes. If you don’t get offended you are either very lucky, or have a far tougher disposition than pretty much everyone. DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU ARE AT WORK OR HAVE CHILDREN IN THE ROOM WITH YOU.

Here is the link.

So I’ve pretty much outlined why I despise 4chan and it’s anonymity, but I feel that I should point out why it is not ALL bad.

Essentially, anonymity offers free speech. You can literally say or post anything.he argument goes that what is right and what is wrong is subjective and in the eye of the beholder, and so refusing to allow something to become public based on someone’s else’s opinion is problematic because they cannot tell any better than anyone else what is right. Social norms are fluid, and regulating these by refusing to allow people to discuss and reconsider them would prevent them from changing.

A second argument is that by allowing people to post things anonymously, we allow them to do so without repercussion. This means that by posting whatever they want, they can question whatever that they want. The ability to question, scrutinize and discuss matters in a public forum is a liberal notion, and one that unquestionably leads to positive outcomes for society. The hope is that by taking the bad, such as bullying and goreporn, with the good, such as genuine discussion of social matters, that society will be better off for it.

Finally, I should point out that I should point out that it is wrong of me to tar all 4chan users with the same brush. Clearly, they are not all unbalanced people who are intent on doing evil. Some are, but I would hazard a guess that the vast majority are not. After all, they did do this. Here are pictures from the event.

Until next time.

P.S. sorry for this not being very funny.

 

 

Ramblings and Musings Seven – Life Without the Internet

The internet has unquestionably had an enormous effect upon the way we live our lives. Even a disestablishmentarianist such as myself wastes far more time than I can really justify on the web, much to the mirth of all you antidisestablishmentarianists out there (I have waited so  long to write that sentence… I feel that I should have ticked something off my lifelong to-do list).

But what if the internet was to have never occurred? What would life have been like? I wonder…

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Ramblings and Musings Six – Internet Memes

Internet memes. For the uninitiated, internet memes are usually a confusing, unfunny and often offensive thing. To the initiated, internet memes are usually a confusing, unfunny and often offensive thing.

Internet memes are essentially things (such as a picture, video or even as something as abstract as an idea) that spread across the internet at great speed. And that ladies and gentleman, is what a meme is in its simplest terms. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad about a meme, just like there is nothing good or bad about any form of expression, such as art or music.

Some of the more famous memes to have spread around the internet include:

Lolcats

Demotivators

Success Kid

SFW Porn

Socially Awkward Penguin

There have also been a number of very successful video memes:

There are also a whole raft of other forms of memes out there as well, such as musical, advertising and e-mail.

Most forms of expression however, such as music or art, are created with the intention of existing in the real tangible world, as opposed to simply residing in cyber-space. Internet memes on the whole are intended almost exclusively for a internet audience, we’re as I’ve outlined previously, there is almost no form of regulation or censorship. This means that amongst the harmless memes out there exists a subsection of truly awful meme that have spread around the internet. These include Goatse, Bluewaffle, Lemon Party and Two Girls, One Cup. These are decidedly uncool, and I shall be not linking them to my blog, nor will I be recommending anyone search for them. To emphasize my point, below is a number of reaction videos to Two Girls, One Cup. So bad is this video, that the reaction videos in themselves became a meme. You tube has thousands of these, and these I would recommend watching.

First, a group of 5 every dayguys try watch the video:

Secondly, a group of 5 battle-hardened Marines from the United States Marines attempt to watch it:

Thirdly, Ron Jeremy attempts to watch the film. For those who don’t know, Ron Jeremy is rated by Adult Video News (which the New York times says is to pornography what Billboard is to records) as the number one adult film star of all time and has starred in over 2,000(!) adult films. I think that it goes without saying that this is a man who has seen some messed up stuff. This is his reaction:

There you have it. So horrible is this meme that a man who has been in literally thousands of films that would make Chuck Norris himself blush in horror whilst watching was unable to watch it in it’s entirety. This is one god awful meme.

The final video is of mankind’s most overly qualified individual to watch this clip… Bear Grylls. For those of you who don’t know him, for shame. He is the star of a television program called ‘Man vs Wild’, and has done a range of disgusting things such as drinking urine saved in a rattlesnake’s skin, utilized a decomposing sheep’s skin as a sleeping bag and drank the liquid from elephant dung. Surely he could withstand such a video?

Unfortunately, I have reached the limit for the amount of videos that one can have in an article of a wordpress blog, so to see the video you will have to click here, but I warn you…. it’s not pretty.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why memes suck.

Until next time.

Ramblings and Musings 5 – The Best Advertising Videos Online.

I’ve decided that for the first time I am going to actually feature in my blog something that is actually relevant to my course: advertising products through the use of online videos. And so, I’ve decided that I am going to compile a top 10 of my favorite commercial videos.

All of these commercials are available on the internet, however they are also available on other mediums such as television. I also only chose to feature a maximum of one commercial per company, of this would have been made up almost exclusive of Old Spice and Playstation commercials. Behold:

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I know, contentious right? Not having Old Spice number one? Who does this guy think he is?! Again, for those of you who are unhappy with this decision, I direct you to one of my many sorry faces:

This a particularly heartfelt apology.

Until next time.

My New Favourite Video On the Internet

OK folks, this is my first non-rambling and/or musing post. I’m someone who has seen many videos on the internet, whether they fall under the character of TV show, animal documentary, comedy clip, or um…. ‘other’. Recreational pursuits aside, this clip was introduced to me by my accounting lecturer on Friday, and I have fallen completely and utterly in love with it.

Whilst I realize that I have done probably the least persuasive job selling a video clip ever, I cannot emphasize just how much you should watch this clip. Not only will you be a better person and look better naked as a result of watching this, you may even become taller.

I would also like to add that I don’t even like the Black Eyed Peas, yet this blows my mind every time that I watch it.