Sarcasm is Lost on Today's Youth

A while back, I wrote a blog entry about red pandas at a zoo in Sydney. The gist of the entry was a sarcastic comment that red pandas were not as cute as the better known black and white giant pandas.

A couple weeks later, I followed this entry up with one about boto dolphins which I had seen on the Discovery Channel documentary show Planet Earth. Again, I made a comparison between boto dolphins and their more commonly known ocean counterparts, the bottlenose dolphin.

Little did I know there would be a public outcry for my random musings. A sampling:

Anonymous said...

You know what? You suck, and you are an ugly, warped example of a human. I would prefer your mom anyday!
- January 19, 2008 11:13 AM

Anonymous said...

that is mean God made them the way they are for a reason! and i think they ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- April 04, 2008 10:20 PM

Anonymous said...

I agree with anonymas!!!!!!!! That is tottaly mean! I am doing a report on these animals, and they are amazing! you should care!
- April 22, 2008 10:23 PM

Anonymous said...

Well SOMEONE is RETARDED here. You just wasted space on your blog writing this piece of meaningless crap. I only found this when I googled 'Boto Dolphins' for my project on how endangered they are. Maybe they are endangered because biased, bloody blockheads like you kill them because they're ugly. I don't give a crap about how ugly they are, and no one really does. "Oh, EW! BOTO DOLPHINS SUCK!!!!" That's how you sound, you bloody piece of crap. Go jump off a cliff.
- May 25, 2008 6:04 PM

Wow, there's some major love out there for the boto dolphin. I checked my logs, and there were actually quite a number of hits for this entry, all coming from Google Images. I did a search for "boto dolphin" myself and saw that my page was somehow the number one image listing for this term (oddly enough with a picture of a bottlenose dolphin rather than a boto dolphin).

I guess there are a number of teachers assigning homework about the boto dolphin, and thus a number of kids looking for information about them. I think that's great. I really I do. But I also think today's youth are very lame. Not only do they not understand the simple concept of sarcasm, but look at them:





Ugh, Really? Is that the kind of youth we have in this day and age? What happened to the kids of days gone by who could understand fun and games, like these guys:



Or the kids who really understood how to hang tough despite the odds:



That's what I'm talking about. Sorry lame kids of today who can't spell but insist on leaving comments on my blog. The kids of yesteryear rule!

Graffiti Spoilers

I was wandering through Greenwich Village when I spotted the following:


It made me laugh that someone took the time to deface public property in this manner. But more importantly, it made me realize that there must be a whole world of graffiti spoilers out there. Graffiti that reveals a plot twist or secret ending for the world to see. I am taking it upon myself to collect them all, and to do this, I created www.graffitispoilers.com.

Please keep an eye out and help me on my quest. If you happen to see a graffiti spoiler of your own, whip out your cell phone cameras and send them my way, won't you? I'd appreciate it!

Time to Face Facts

Why must you poke me on Facebook? What does that even mean? Do you like me? Do you hate me? If so, just tell me. I'm not even sure how to respond to a poke. So just stop it.

In fact, I'm not sure how to respond to the Facebook phenomenon. Everyone thinks it's so cool to amass all of these friends. Why? I don't care how many friends you have. In fact, I'm not even really your friend, person I worked with for two months who I once had a conversation about bagels with. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you have a Bigger Brain than me and that you loved the movie Iron Man, but do I need a news alert to keep me informed about what you wrote on your friend Mindy's wall? Probably not. And Mindy's way out of your league by the way. Waaaay out.

I think all of these Facebook apps have really gone overboard as well. There's now an app for everything. For my favorite music. For Scrabble. For scribbling on my page. Even for SuperPoking. I don't even like regular poking. Please don't bring your enhanced cyberfinger this way, ok?

The one thing I do know about Facebook is that it can't last. We've seen this story before, haven't we? From Yahoo! Groups, to Friendster, to MySpace, to Facebook, something else will always come along. You know why? Because you're not cool. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're really not. I mean you're great and people think you're awesome in your own unique way, but you're not cool the way kids these days perceive coolness.

Therein lies the problem. Kids want to congregate where all the cool kids are. But cool kids don't hang out in places where their parents and teachers have set up pages and profiles. They want to be free to poke each other in geriatric free environments. And more power to them. I wouldn't want to set up my "I hate Ms. Andrews" teacher bashing page in the same space that hosts photos of Ms. Andrews drunk in Vegas, as tagged by Mr. Dinkins, the P.E. teacher. Well, actually that would be sweet. But promiscuous teachers like Ms. Andrews are few and far between.

No, instead what you have will be teachers who set up fake profiles in the same network as their students, using them to snoop around and read their private thoughts. This has already happened in a well documented case at the prestigious Horace Mann School in New York City. It's only a matter of time before Horace Mann becomes Bel Air Prep becomes Regular Old School U.S.A. and kids move on to the next thing, taking the it factor with them.

So enjoy your pokes while you can, people. Because by this time in a couple of years, you'll be snarking people on PeopleChain or whatever the cool kids choose to call home. It's just the natural thing to do.

Mother's Day Thoughts...

In honor of Mother's Day, I figured I should write a little something about my mom. But let's face it, I'm not good with sappy sentiments. So instead, let's celebrate another brush with my mom and technology. A couple years ago, I documented my mom's exciting experience with On-Star in her new car.

If you click on the link, you'll also see my dad's first (and only) attempt at e-mail. Now my mom's definitely more computer savvy than my dad, but she's also a bit e-mail challenged. Her e-mail Achilles heel? She's an over-forwarder. You know. The people who like to forward things like this:

• A list of fun trivia my mom bet I didn't know (like did you know that "stewardesses" is the longest word you can type with just your left hand, and "lollipop" is the longest word you can type with only your right? Well, you do now, thanks to my mom)
• A PowerPoint presentation of the Beijing Olympic venues (not any actual people or events, just the venues themselves -- yes, photos of buildings)
• A picture of some guy on top of the World Trade Center as a plane swoops in behind him. Yes, the one people sent around back in 2001. And yes, it's still a hoax and still in poor taste -- yet still surprisingly forwardable amongst older Chinese women
• A laundry list of the benefits of drinking green tea. For instance, it fights cancer, prevents Alzheimer's disease, slows aging, is tasty, makes bones stronger, and prevents the flu. I don't think any of this has actually been proven. Except, of course, the line about it being tasty
• A montage of Guinness World Record holders, like some dude with crazy long fingernails, and some lady with a really long neck
• A 22 photo slide show of a kitten and parakeet living together in perfect harmony. Just like this, only 22 times longer:
  

I think the interesting thing about all this is that I've learned a little more about my mom. I now have more insight into the things that she finds amusing and interesting. And sure, I've learned that it encompasses strange facts about typing words with your right hand, freak show Guinness Record holders, green tea, and parakeets and kittens living in harmony. But I'm still glad she's given me a glimpse into this part of her online world.

Good for you mom. Embrace technology with open arms! Happy Mother's Day!