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It’s a fair question, isn’t it? While it’s true that many of these “authors” are not being paid for their work, and even the ones who are become uncannily lazy in the alluring bask of fame, that’s just no excuse to publish shitty content to your audience simply because you know they have no better expectations than what you have to offer. During an enlightening conversation with Mr. Repose, I decided I could do much worse than to expose some of the reasons that the vast majority of webcomics will probably always be lamesauce.
Sadly, the first word that comes to my mind when I think of webcomics is not “funny”, but rather “failure”. In a virtual world where most people have no personality decipherable from some other blockhead sitting two seats down on one of the other library computers, some of these boring, unfulfilled sheep use the vast array of 5 or 6 genuinely “unique” characters on countless webcomics to make themselves feel that they can identify with someone… even if they’re not real. Then when someone they met online asks them what they’re like in real life, they can have a lie at the ready:
Billyskater93: I’m like Brandon, the super cool guitarist in METALCOMIC. Here’s a link to his bio.
SallyJuniperxoxo: That’s so awesome! Do you play guitar? ^_^;
Billyskater93: I’m learning. Also I’m thinner than Brandon. LOL!!
One idiot lying to another idiot. The fact is that Brandon’s clone looks nothing like the character would look as a real person, and is in fact 260 lbs. and his knowledge of guitars is that he’s seen them on MTV. Oh and Sally is probably a guy.
It’s not a problem when you compare yourself to a fictional character, lots of people do that, but when you give someone an unrealistic outlook about you and start to believe that you’re successful and awesome simply by the virtue of optimism, this can only lead to disappointment.
Another strong selling point to readers and simultaneously, the most obnoxious thing about webcomics, is the attitude. Never before have cocky expressions and raised eyebrows received so much undue popularity outside of an animated film produced by Dreamworks. In some comics, that’s the whole fucking punchline! An “edgy” look of disgust, hate, and/or confusion. You know, if these guys just didn’t bother trying to come up with filler, we could all enjoy webcomics for what they really are:
Click to continue reading “Hey, why do webcomics suck so much?”
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If you’ve ever wondered where furries hang out when they’re not dressed up in ridiculous costumes buggering each other in a dark closet.. first of all, get your head checked, then read the rest of this article, because this might be one possible answer to that disturbing question. Say hello to my new favorite website -
www.cuddleparty.com
What’s more amazing than how utterly fucking creepy the concept of complete strangers getting together to “cuddle” is, is that this has been going on since 2004 and I’ve only just heard of it. That’s a crime. On those lonely nights when I really could have used someone to viciously mock, Cuddle Party managed to fly beneath my freak radar. I forgive them though. There’s no time like the present, after all.
So in short, in case you didn’t bother clicking the link or are too stunned to take in all that stupid nonsense at once, Cuddle Party is like group therapy for touchy-feely people. There’s even an application to become a facilitator. Despite the assurances of Cuddle Party (god I feel so stupid when I type that out), you can bet your voluptuous butt cheeks that there are some weirdos who attempt to sign up so they can cop a feel of a random middle aged woman’s subtly wrinkled sweet meats. Mmmm. Meat.
The funniest bit to me is that most of the people you see in the videos are pretty funky looking. You know why? Because attractive people get cuddled whenever they want it and they don’t need a special pajama party. lol
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You know, recently I’ve been mulling over a scenario that would probably work out better for me than the rest of you. That’s not to say that it would be entirely bad, well… depending of course as to what kind of person you are. The scenario is, what would happen if I became, either through fortune or conquest, the next great dictator of the world? So before I get a bit too dreamy eyed and start envisioning myself gloriously riding on tanks through the burning cities of those who dared, dared I say, to oppose my glorious vision for the future. Before I start to get a twinkle in my eye at the thought of standing before kings and politicians who my soldiers are forcing to bow at my feet. Before I get a raging boner thinking of the bountiful bosoms of the liberated womenfolk massaging my face like soft doughy sacks of warm chest fruit. I decided to put myself into a degree of perspective and run through my whole rein from glorious rise to inevitable fall, with advice I have received through the reading of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Robert Greene (Author of the recent book, The 48 Laws of Power). Bearing in mind of course, that I won’t be following their advice at all. So please, allow me to describe to you a majestic and gut wrenching (especially for enemy sympathizers and spies, but slightly more literal if you catch my drift) journey into a world where the next great dictator liberates you, The People, and brings an age of untold prosperity and atrocities unto all mankind.
Phase One: The Planning
(Codename: Operation Chili Con Queso)
The codename is based on the fact that, due to budget constraints during the planning process, I will be forced to assemble my dark council at the local Taco Bell.
Click to continue reading “The World Is Not Enough”
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Fans of Japanese culture frequently refer to things like J-Rock, J-Pop, etc. with much twinkling in their eyes. These subjects of their affection are like our own Rock and Pop music, but … Japanese. I bet you didn’t see that coming. Some of it is pretty good, some is crap; again, just like the non-Japanese versions of the same. However, some things should not be Japanified because the odds of them turning out less than retarded are not good, and these include classic American cartoon heroes. I mean, when has this ever worked? In this case, it was the once mega-popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that suffered the weirdness of the land of the rising sun.
You know them. The four lovable green mutants born to popular culture in the 80’s, enjoying a vast empire of toys, t-shirts and other junk. The funny thing is, the cartoon was actually good. Not to criticize the Japanese in particular here as well, but the closest “big hit” I can think of to compare TMNT to would be the Japanese-created Dragonball Z. It was crap. The plots were formulaic and dull, and the dialog was a crime.
In contrast, the TMNT’s had none of the super duper world demolishing powers of the DBZ cast, but the scripts were exceedingly well done and the show was actually funny and clever… and they also didn’t spend two thirds of one half hour episode doing internal monologues about how they were about to fight, even as their enemy just stood there. DBZ was so ridiculous I think it made its target generation’s fans dumber than hell.
At one time, I would have thought that if a Japanese company borrowed the turtles and put them into new situations with the style of animation I come to enjoy as a teenager when anime was becoming a sensation in the west, that the result would be pure awesomeness. I would have thought wrong.
Click to continue reading “There is no J in TMNT”
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As a sentient species, we are ever driven to discover. This has led to many amazing accomplishments, such as:
- Skyscrapers
– Cinema
– Artificial organs
– Rice Krispies
But sometimes, and by sometimes I mean most of the time, we overestimate our cognitive capabilities and end up bruised and broken (hence, the Darwin awards). The following are a few of the things that should be properly labeled so we don’t hurt our stupid selves quite so much:
1.) Likable People: This is a no-brainer, specifically in reference to romantic attraction, or as some of you would refer to it, “getting a lil’ sumthin’ sumthin’”; clear labels should be applied to all people who are above a certain level of likability so if you know yourself to be an emotional suction cup, they will provide a stark reminder of how you’re just risking another potentially devastating relationship failure that will tear you up inside for possibly many years and make you question everything about yourself in a fruitless effort to find out exactly what it is that people find so repulsive about you that they don’t want to include you in their future.
The labels would be color-coded according to base likability, like so -
Grey: People in the grey range are not very likable. These are the kinds of people who tell you spreadsheet jokes at the office followed by their own hollow laughter, and own at least 3 coffee mugs with Star Trek characters on them. In actuality, there may as well not even be a label for these harmless amoebae, but in the event one is accidentally killed in a freak printer accident, the officers on duty will be able to take one look at their color, quickly file them under “No big loss” and get back to investigating serious matters.
Yellow: A step up from grey, yellow people can be likable under certain circumstances, but are otherwise intolerable. If they stick to their area of expertise then they provoke little irritation from peers, but if they step out of bounds, they must be reminded that simply because they’re yellow does not mean they’re intelligent or good at ping pong. You could take a yellow label to the prom just so you have someone to go with, but pay them 10 dollars in advance not to speak.
Click to continue reading “Warning Labels”
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I have a kind of knack for coming up with delicious concoctions in the kitchen, well at least most of the time. One thing I’ve discovered over the years is that sometimes, if you’re just good enough at something, at times you can be extraordinarily bad at it. So I was making wings one night, mostly because it was the only thing left in the damn freezer, and wouldn’t you know… it was the frozen kind that don’t come pre-coated in a layer of delicious and heart-attack enduing sauce. So I was left with one alternative, I had to make some damn sauce. Now, an old friend of mine could do wonders with a couple of cans of this stuff called Nazi sauce and a stick or two of butter. I know it sounds gross, but it was oh-so delicious. So I decided to sort of replicate that recipe with some butter, some sweet bbq sauce, and a splash of hot chili sauce…
So as I was setting up the pot on the stove to mix all this stuff up in, began to feel this may not be a good idea; however, when put in a situation where I should probably not be doing something like this I present myself with two options that make me either question my manliness or embrace it.
OPTION ONE, PUSSY OUT: A decidedly unmanly option if there ever was one, if I decided to back down now not only would my wings go sauceless but I would have failed at my attempt to craft a new and delicious wing sauce recipe. Granted, there was a chance I’d fail anyway, but it never looks good to pussy out without even trying.
OPTION TWO, GO BALLS DEEP: Hell yeah! That sounds way more macho (stupid) and manly (extra stupid with a hint of crazy)! Don’t think about things, if you’ve already started doing them go balls deep and just pray whatever you end up doing doesn’t destroy you. Going balls deep has been a key factor in determining American Foreign policy since the 50s and nothing about that shit has gone wrong. In a way, with that in mind, there was no way I could fail!
Click to continue reading “How to Fail at Wing Sauce”
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Once again, I have nothing good to say about anyone. This is because I was born with curly red hair and didn’t get enough hugs. Plus, I haven’t been laid in like, 6 months. Well I threw a dart at the list on my wall, and it fell comically to the floor, so I guess the target today is … everyone. That suits me just fine.
I give you, the Top 10 most annoying sorts of people. Note: While I understand that there are far more varieties of obnoxious, foul-smelling peons in the world, I had to keep this somewhat reasonably sized because we’re pressed for space until we find a way to deal with the tag monster problem. Apparently fire doesn’t get rid of everything.
10. Australians
G’die, Mite! Aussies managed to come in as the least annoying of the 10 that came to mind, because while nearly every Australian I’ve met is an easily angered, argumentative twatdangle, this happens to work in their favor as well; they like to pick fights, I like to pick fights. The only differences here are, I don’t live in a cat box and my accent is typically not the subject of ridicule. Australians sound like retarded British people, and the fact is, if you tell them this, they probably won’t laugh it off. They’ll just adjust their ‘wit’ accordingly, then call you what amounts to ’stupid asshole’ anyway, only it will sound far more idiotic and is quite likely to simply cause laughter and requests of more funny Aussie slang. The sad thing is, if you look up Aussie slang, the primary Google result as of this writing is a page that remarks:
Well, when you think of Australia, chances are you think of Desert, Kangaroos and Paul Hogan. And when you think of the way we speak, you probably think of “g’day”, “mate”, and the phrase popularised by Paul Hogan, “Throw another shrimp on the barbie!”
It’s not all I think of. I also think of the huge flies that buzz around you constantly no matter where the fuck you are, the ungodly heat, and this one Jackie Chan movie that took place in Australia because American actors were too expensive to hire.
If all of this sounds a little ethnocentric, bear it in mind that I happen to think my own country is full of clueless, shallow fuckheads obsessed with war (in fact, Americans rank higher up in the list). At least Aussies don’t have that. They just like to call you names you have to look up when you get home.
Click to continue reading “The Top 10 Annoying Types of People”
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This site, well, doesn’t get many comments. Page views seem fairly high though, and I suppose that tells me that at least someone is reading this nonsense, and that’s really good enough for me. As Huxley states every now and then in the rotating quotes on the right, obscurity can only be cultivated in the dark. Or at least something to that effect.
When I first created this site, it was much like… say, a rebound relationship. My last website broke my heart, cut me to the bone, and made me want to pick up an acoustic guitar and write the world’s billionth love song. So this was the first thing I made. At first I wanted to name it Platitudes.com, for the precise reason that, unless I’m being extremely lazy in my writing, I sort of go out of my way to avoid platitudes. You could even say that it was intended to be ironic which would have been sure to tickle the funny bones of any Gen-Xer that happened to be reading this. As a side note to that, I once cracked wise that the best way to get money out of those idiots is to just call things what they are, they seem to think saying something is what it is in a really droll voice makes it cutting and clever. Ironic. My brilliant idea was to make Gen-X clothing. Hats that said, in small text ‘hat.’ Shoes that were in fact labeled ‘Shoe Brand Shoes.’ Expensive t-shirts that said ‘T-Shirt.’ You get the idea. Of course, I couldn’t get the website name I wanted which sort of irritated me, so I got the Warden on Ventrilo along with another friend of mine in an attempt to coax a new name out of them since my first choice was taken.
Being the super useful Co-Admin he is the Warden cracked wise that Platitudes sounded a lot like, Platypuses. You know, the ugly poisonous duckbeasts from that wasteland of humanity known as Australia, where everything is poisonous and will kill your ass. Especially the music, Jet sucks. So, the suggestion was to name the site, I shit you not… PlatitudePlatypus.com. While not only is this a stupid suggestion, against my better judgment I said, ‘dude, who would think of something like that?’ Little did I realize that this is the damn internet. It’s not a matter of who would think of something like that, it’s a matter of when. So I did a google search for ‘platitude.’ This lead me to an article on uncyclopedia. What’s that you see in the right hand corner upon viewing the page? A FUCKING PLATYPUS SPEAKING PLATITUDES!
Click to continue reading “The Joy of Statistics, Logistics and … Platypi”
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Popularity: 100% [?]
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Spam Catalog: A Swirling Vortex of Fail
When I first registered to Blog Catalog, I did so at the behest of The Warden. Somehow, I was under the mistaken impression that it was a good site to ‘get noticed’ on. I was only half right, as it’s a good place to get noticed by Habeeb and Hadji’s spam emporium, good luck finding a breathing and intelligent human being in this seething pit of stupidity. I don’t know who moderates this site, but whoever it is must be the most down syndrome infested retard to ever walk the face of the earth. Holy shit, I have never seen so many Viagra blogs, recycled content blogs, crappy online storefront blogs, ‘blogging tips’ blogs and ‘make money online’ blogs in my entire life. This site barely encourages ‘networking’, it’s a lot easier to just add every spammer who makes a friend request and leaves a stupid comment on your ’shout box’ than to try and pick and choose. If you’re looking for actual humans and not whoever is surfing the web looking to promote his Viagra blog while working from his local Sprint call center in New Delhi, then you, my friend, are fucked.
It’s fairly common on some sites to have junk, and such. You can’t keep all the spammers out, which is true in and of itself. Whereas most sites at least endeavor to keep most of the spammers out, Blog Catalog has taken a unique and novel approach to the spam issue… they don’t even try to prevent it. I spent three hours today clicking blogs, of the blogs I clicked only 2 of them were actual blogs about things other than ‘blogging’ or ‘internet marketing,’ and only one of them was a blog that actually had content on it that didn’t consist of some jack-offs twitter ‘tweets.’ This isn’t the only day I’ve tried to find some people a random either, but some days I try to find people by interests. So I would go to say the ‘humor’ group and browse the members there, and they were Indians as well! It’s like a really boring version of Night Of The Living Dead only instead of zombies trying to eat your brains it’s Indian guys trying to sell you cell phones and cheap prescription medications.
Click The Image for A Larger Version
Oh, what’s that? ‘It can’t be that bad.’ Yeah, take a look at these shout box comments that I’ve had the pleasure of receiving, they are so legit and not at all generic form spam intended solely to get people to come to their blog and buy shoes made by slave kids in Hong-Kong.
Click to continue reading “Spam Catalog: A Swirling Vortex of Fail”
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Popularity: 84% [?]