Epic take-down! Watch this talking head COMPLETELY DESTROY this other talking head in 45 seconds! Argument for that thing we don't agree with DECIMATED by this person arguing for what we do agree with! AWESOME! Epic! Massive!
How many truly epic intellectual take-downs have you seen in your life? Not just ones that you agree with but ones that make the person they are debating change their minds, admit they were wrong and correct their life course because of it? Because that's what would make an argument epic right? If it actually changed the other person's point of view. Not just because the person is spouting off things that you (or the person posting the link) just happened to agree with. That's not epic. That's just an argument.
Click bait. That's what the kids are calling it these days. Watch this AWESOME EPIC OUTSTANDING YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT thing... And so you watch. And they record that you watched and then can show their EPIC AWESOME click through numbers to their advertisers and get more money and then chase more clicks and the cycle continues. Whether it's animals doing cute things, people falling down, odd weather phenomena, car crashes in Russia or the aforementioned news clips of gasbags bloviating.
It's gotten to the point where I only trust a small handful of my friends who post clips as to what is actually worth watching. I mean I love a good cat video, don't get me wrong, but I don't have an urge to watch 5 minutes of the CUTEST SLEEPING CAT EVER! And if I am watching an EPIC TAKE-DOWN of one person to another I really do insist that the arguments be sound and not something I can pick apart from the comfort of my office chair without even opening Google first.
How about a little truth in advertising? Watch this mildly amusing video of a dog running in slow motion. It's worth the minute of your life it will take. Or how about, Do you need some reassurance that your world view is still valid? Watch this video of someone agreeing with you!
There is a saying that perfection is the enemy of good enough. We kill ourselves trying to get to that last little bit extra when really it was just fine and dandy before. I have to think that these stupid tags are part of that issue. Nothing can be just good. Or just fine. Or amusing. Or even cute. It all has to be the BEST! GREATEST! MOST EPIC!
As a child of the 80s I take full blame for describing things as awesome that really aren't. Awesome is just a catch all word now for pretty good. But what happens when something really is awesome? Where do we go? I usually add punctuation. Awesome!! See? Now you know I really mean it. But where does that lead? When you have habitual punctuation abusers on your feed how are you supposed to know if something is really Awesome!!!!! or if it's just awesome. Where does it end?
I know you think I'm worried over nothing but think back to the last time you actually did lol. Not just posted that you did. But actually did. And don't get me started on lmao or roflmao. Really? You really roflmao'd? I think not...
Though if you did you should video that MFer and post it...that would be epic!
No comments:
Post a Comment