Tag: social media

They were never uncool, you hipster douches

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
full disclosure, this is a 2020 photo, since I left photo direction on the original word doc, which explains my quarantine hair that’s all white.

Impetus: Instagram losers start community dedicated to photos taken with older digital cameras, claiming they’re cool again; but the question is, were they ever uncool in the first place?

It’s articles like this disenchant me from photography.  Some arrogant photography snobs on the internet dictate on what’s cool and what’s not, and thousands of idiot sheep with no capability of independent thought buy in, and because perception is reality, it perpetuates this cycle where others fall in place, and suddenly things are cool, and things are uncool at the drop of a hat. 

For lack of a better term in context of the related link, I’ll go ahead and call them digicams: portable, brick-sized-or-less, point-and-shoot cameras.  Not DSLRs, the big, clunky cameras with detachable lenses that cost more than car payments, or any other cameras that act like Polaroids without actually being called Polaroids.

But anyway, there’s apparently an Instagram community dedicated to photography shot on old digicams, and how they’re declaring that they’re cool again.  Leading me to beg the question, when were they ever uncool in the first place?

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Reason #1,728 why social media is cancer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The other night, some friends of mine and I went out to Hooters for dinner.  Ironically, it was actually the girls in the party who suggested it.  However, it turned out to be one of the worst dining experiences in recent memory, because the particular location we went too apparently had the equivalent of TNA Wrestling management working the kitchen, because it was the slowest service I’d received in months, and when the food came out, it was not really hot and was subpar.

However, it did give me a lot of time to watch TV, and I caught the very tail end of the Braves game, where Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb came within one strike from throwing the first Braves no-hitter in 24 years.  Despite the heart-breaking near-miss, it was undoubtedly the greatest start of a very young and budding career for the once-highly touted prospect.  Newcomb should absolutely have been feeling really good after the win that prevented the Dodgers from sweeping them at home.

Nah, instead the afternoon turned sour really fast when some Twitter troll(s) dug into his Twitter history and found some tweets he made when he was high school that were yeah, racially insensitive and pretty homophobic.  So shortly after having the best start of his career, Newcomb was sitting at the media table for the post-game talking about how regretful and apologetic he was for saying stupid shit for when he was a teenager, instead of talking about his fantastic start, in the present.

From what I understand, the person who started this shit storm was supposedly a Nationals fan, so some vindictive Braves fan(s) decided to eye-for-an-eye the situation, so they took it upon themselves to go digging through the old tweets of one of the young Nationals players, and found one in rising star Trea Turner.

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The very definition of social media being miserable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not news: man uses app to order Chick Fil-A

News: that man is Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and this occurrence happened to be in the midst of pride month

And because Chick Fil-A on the internet, is known first and foremost for hating the gays (despite it usually being known as one of the better fast food chains in actual human dialogue), the users of the CEO’s very own company that he runs, go full internet on him, meaning insufferable passive-aggressive shaming, finger pointing and being the keyboard tough guys so many turn into when they feel all safe and cozy behind the anonymity of the internet.

The CEO of Twitter getting obliterated by his very own platform, all because he wanted to enjoy some delicious chicken.  This epitomizes how miserable social media is, when a guy can’t be a little bit pleased with saving a little cash from use of technology, without the masses of keyboard warriors and the finger-pointing Chick Fil-A Watch scrambling to the tops of their soap boxes to shame and go way out of their way to publicly shame others.

And as I’ve said before, I would wager an ungodly amount of money that in spite of the holier-than-thou attitude so many people portray themselves on the internet, whether they’re gay, gay-supporting, or whatever, the people that love to act like they boycott and hate Chick Fil-A, still eat Chick Fil-A from time to time.  It’s just fucking food, and it’s okay to eat it, and surely without the necessity of the judgment of the internet.

Bottom line is that social media is garbage.  The analogy I keep going back to is that it’s like the whole world is connected to AOL at all times, and anyone can IM anyone at any time, with mostly useless nonsense, spam and negativity.  My weekend was kind of soured because of something I found out about over social media, and it’s put me in a mode where I don’t want to really look at it for a little while.  And I’m just some nobody in the world; I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for any sort of celebrities or actually important figures out there.  When the day is over though, I don’t really care.

I’m over having my Star Wars fandom invalidated

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m a fan of Star Wars.  This shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise, as I am very nerdy and have many nerdy interests.  However, throughout the years, I have been told that I am “not as much of a fan” of Star Wars as other people because of a myriad of reasons, with more recently because I don’t have a strong definitive opinion about The Last Jedi.*  Or the fact that I’m not remotely associated with the 501st or have a Rebellion or Empire sticker tattooed on me or brandished on my car.

*I didn’t think it was the best SW film, but I have not declared a jihad against it either

With the standalone Solo film around the corner, I’ve noticed people on social media being super curmudgeon about its release, and how they’re going to make zero effort to watch it and have basically denounced Star Wars as a franchise.  Or any other rhetoric along those lines.  I mean that’s fine and all that they’re not looking forward to it, but I think it’s a little excessive to be lifting a leg and farting all over those people who don’t take SW as serious as a religion.  Perhaps consider learning how to temper expectations, because even the best people in their fields don’t bat 1.000, and it’s only with the possibility of failure where the cream of the crop can truly rise.

But because I tend to not be so extreme in any direction about my excitement or apprehension about Star Wars, or anything really, I often get accused of being something of a filthy casual fan, who knows little about the franchise, and whose opinion about the franchise doesn’t matter as much as someone who, has SW tattoos, emblems on their car, or dresses up as Stormtroopers at Dragon*con.

The thing is, just because my fandom in Star Wars isn’t as vocal, as outwardly or so open to the rest of the world doesn’t mean that I’m no less of a fan.  I could name planets that aren’t mentioned in the canon films like Kashyyyk.  I played my fair share of X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Knights of the Old Republic.  There has been a lot of Star Wars in my life over the years, it’s just that I’m not so obnoxiously outward with it as the whole rest of the narcissistic world is.

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What’s not racist versus what is

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s amazing the lengths that people go out of their way these days for in order to pretend like they’re offended so that they can have a reason to bitch about something on social media with hopes that they’ll go viral and get 15 seconds of internet fame.  This week’s staged offense is a story about a girl in Utah who went to her high school prom wearing a Chinese qipao dress; it doesn’t sound like a big deal at all, but the thing is that the girl wasn’t Chinese or any sort of Asian descent, and suddenly she’s a racist, she’s culturally appropriating, and she’s offending many, many people.

Speaking as an Asian person, I’ll say this: a not-Chinese person wearing a qipao is NOT racist.  Period, full stop.

It also isn’t cultural appropriation, which honestly shouldn’t really exist in terms of clothing, because if the whole world wanted to get technical, it would be quite the contrary and the vast majority of the planet would be appropriating clothing that was manufactured probably in China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam or any other country where cheap, slave-wage labor is available.  If place of origin is what decides what culture clothing belongs to, then just about every American is culturally appropriating someone else’s clothing.

And historically, there have been litanies of women who have worn qipaos or other traditional Chinese garments who weren’t Chinese.  Whether they were celebrities or dignitaries from other countries visiting China, or expats living in China who eventually starting wearing local clothing out of convenience.  There is zero difference between people like these and a teenage girl wearing a qipao for her prom.  She’s in fact pretty and wears it well, and the Chinese originators of the garment would probably be proud to see it being worn to a meaningful event like a teenager’s prom by someone who claims to really love it.

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Sound logic

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Atlanta rapper encourages people to use paintballs instead of actual bullets, if one must satiate the need to shoot firearms.  The message was seemingly intended to curb violence; except when some dickheads unleashed a torrent of paintballs on a bunch of people at a public gas station, one enraged 15-year old fired back – with a real firearm.  And of course, a toddler was inadvertently struck and killed in the completely unnecessary and preventable fracas, and so now a child is dead and a teenager is in all likelihood going to prison for a long time and the people shooting paintballs who started the whole incident are nowhere to be found.

Hashtag Atlanta not the TV show

It’s a little difficult who really should be responsible for the root of this whole incident.  On one hand, we have some c-list rapper using his social media reach to even put the wise idea into the heads of little impressionable wannabe thugs that shooting guns is okay as long as it’s with paintballs and not actual bullets.  On the other hand, the dumbasses he influences aren’t really his responsibility, and he’s not the one who fired at actual people, since his own genius video documentation of him vandalizing things were usually inanimate objects.

I think the seeds to why I felt like writing about it is simply the fallacy of the intention of suggesting paintballs over bullets; which is basically why shoot anything at all?  In what world outside of the Middle East are people afflicted with the urge to need to shoot shit to where a suggestion of paintballs over bullets would even be made in the first place?  Look, I know coming from America there’s a lot of irony in that statement, but still, there’s something seriously wrong with the idea of if you must shoot guns is even a perceived thing in the first place.

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The whitest, most privileged feud since Duke vs. Yale

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Have your slave butler get the popcorn: the NRA is outraged with the YETI cooler company for deciding to cease their partnership as an NRA vendor, demands that their mindless, gun-crazy followers and underlings boycott

Is there anything more entertaining than two icons of things white people like feuding with each other?  In one corner, we have the YETI cooler company, the fairly young company that manufactures supposedly high-end coolers and drink receptacles that white people go gonzo over.  And in the other corner, we have the ageless and timeless National Rifle Association, the biggest punching bag save for the president himself for the left, rife with criticism for the fact that there’s a shooting almost every single day, primarily by white people, but that doesn’t change the fact that the alleged majority of NRA due-paying members are white.

And at first blush, it looks like the young white company has decided to distance its partnership with the company helmed primarily by old white people, and the old white people are none too happy about it.

Honestly, this does make YETI look a little more favorable in my eyes.  No, this isn’t going to make me drop what I’m doing and go drop $200 on a fucking cooler, when a $5 Styrofoam gas station box and 50¢ worth of ice accomplish the exact same thing, but it will take YETI out of my crosshairs as something to criticize because I for the life of me can’t comprehend why white people go so bonkers over a company that makes overpriced coolers and has the branding of all caps Arial Black on a black rectangle that makes me wonder what the fuck I’m doing with my career; yeah, it’ll prevent me from elaborating on that thought, with 700 more words.

But it doesn’t change the fact that seeing a good old fashioned white-on-white conflict makes me giddy with ironic anticipation at seeing two sissies getting into a slap fight.

Seriously, YETI vs. the NRA is the best white-on-white feud I’ve seen since Duke got paired up against Yale in the 2016 Men’s NCAA basketball tournament. 

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