People Think Stupid Things

This hit my twitter feed, and I'm just going to file it into my pile of: Dumb Things That Some People Think, because, well, people think stupid things...and tell them to surveyors.... if you clicked the link to the story, you'll see it's all a bunch of hooey anyway. Ch12 should be ashamed for giving this any attention.

In fact, this is an object lesson in how marketing spin (for a design company on one has ever heard of) gets amplified by "news" organizations thirsty for content because...well, because, they believe that they must constantly provide fresh, engaging, content, 24-7 to retain viewership and market share and....like a fool, I replied (critically) and they got what the wanted: "engagement" which is the coin of the realm on social media. Best part? The story is a year old.

To be fair, most of the comments in the thread were along the lines of "ugh" and "this means almost 75% think he shouldn't."

*I've met that Santa, at America's Got Talent's auditions we sang at two years ago, and he's great.







*Santa is a male, he's based on an actual person. James Bond is male, he's based on actual people (including the author's inflated perception of himself). Jesus was male when he was here, at least, I don't assume heavenly genders because I'm not sure that matters in the eternal.

They Have Gone Insane

I like Twitter. There, I said it. I don't use it like many do, i think, which is why I like it. I actually preferred the 140 character requirement!  It's more a news feed for me.

I made the mistake of checking twitter during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings yesterday and was greeted with a few conservatives calling out the crazy that was happening on the left.

I'm not even going to link to any screenshots of the now-deleted tweets about Zina Bash's hand, but I will say this:

If you saw a "sign" in this, you need to do some serious self-evaluation. It was you, not her, and you are seeing things to the point of being crazy.

If you believed, liked, or re-tweeted the crazy, you are an asshole.

You may even be a friend of mine, I know some folks that have gone crazy with politics lately. You are still my friend, as far as I am concerned, but you may be an asshole. Stop that, please.

 

Many of the comments, replies, and other crazy talk is how Mrs. Bash, the daughter of a legal immigrant Mom and Grandparents on her Dad's side, is still racist because of her racist immigration policies working for Trump, blah, blah, blah. It's as though they literally cannot conceptualize that someone can have a different take on immigration policy, and that a child of immigrants can think that ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS A PROBLEM.

Granted, I have a different perspective from many, as, like her, my wife is a 1st generation American, the daughter of a Dutch man and a German woman that are US citizens and are all conservative and against ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

Remember that word, "illegal?" It amuses us greatly how often it gets forgotten on the news, etc, and "immigrants" are discussed as though all have attempted to become citizens, etc.

Twitter Is Sensitive And Haz Feelingz

Well, here’s an interesting lesson in Twitter dynamics.

I am a nobody on Twitter, really. I follow and am followed by a small number of people. I’ve tweeted a lot, sure, but it’s just me yelling in the wind (much like on this blog).

Until last night’s Bengals-Steelers Monday Night Football game. **update, Shazier looks to be improving nicely.**

I decided to quickly tweet when I wasn’t surprised by Ryan Shazier getting hurt when he led with his helmet on a tackle, because he has a clear history of doing that, and grabbed a video of the hit on Giovanni Bernard in 2015 that actually caused a rule change, actually called the Ryan Shazier rule (they even had a graphic prepared and talked about it (and the Carson Palmer and Hines Ward rules) on the broadcast in the second half). This was as the incident was developing, so I made sure to include in my tweet that I hoped he wasn’t severely injured on the play:

*typo alert, “hit” was typed to be “he” but #fatfingers

I also made sure NOT to #shazier, but apparently it doesn't matter if you are searching for keywords (so why hashtag anymore?)

So, you can already see that a few (lol) people “liked” the tweet, but more people didn’t. 44 fine folks chose to comment, a pittance in most twitter lives, but more comments by far than any tweet I’ve ever tweeted (out of 10.7K)

BTW, the link is just spam, it’s to a Aliexpress hoverboard for sale.

Here are the ones twitter labeled as offensive:

Bonus points to the last guy for correct use of “you’re." I even "liked" a couple of the tweets to show I was a good sport.

I reported a lot of the abusive tweets, but all the emails I got from Twitter seemed to agree that none were bad enough for action. Oh well.

I know way too much about twitter and humans to engage any of these folks other than “liking” a few of the tweets. Twitters emails agreed with that plan. LOL

I should point out that pretty much all of the commenters are similarly low-impact tweeters like myself. One guy had over 1000 followers but has only tweeted about that many times, so this is all small potatoes.

It is, however, my potato field, and I really didn’t enjoy getting talked about like this. I mean, I’m over it, but I’m also surprised by how many people actually clicked on my profile to find personal things to insult me over.

I get it, but I’d still like to explain to some of them that I’ve said the same-ish thing about Burfict: keep leading with your head and your career will be cut short, dumbass. That I’m actually a nice guy. At least I'm honest enough to admit that as much as I hate Hines Ward, I'd have wanted him on my team.

Whatever. 

The thing is, the empathetic me that is upset I upset people is also inside the guy that believes what I said was harsh but correct. Shazier has made a career out of these types of hits, and its likely cumulative damage that tweaked (still hoping that’s all it is) his back last night. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the Steelers’ Burfict, you know what I mean? He hits hard, on the edge or just over it, and he's the emotional leader of the defense. Both team's defense suffered when these guys left the game. Well, the Steelers fans love him more that we love Burfict, but there are other reasons for that. I’ve talked/tweeted about these tackles in general, how one team changed the way they tackle (more rugby style) and how successful that’s been (that article actually contrasted them with the Bengals, to my chagrin). 

So, sure, sorry I said “Aw” at the start of the tweet, but pointing out a player’s habitual hitting style after he got hurt using it and providing video evidence of what I pointed out, nope, not sorry for that.

I did click on some of the commenter’s profiles and I find one guy that’s a die-hard Buckeye fan (Shazier played for Ohio State) (oh, and this is a shitty thing to do, dick, trying to get me unfollowed)

also whined about a very reasonable tweet essentially saying the same thing:

Seriously, dude. Grow up.

Speaking of that, the only other one I feel like pointing out is this kind soul in a young guy:

Personal insults? Check. Assumptions based on profile pic? Check. Best part is his profile is all Jesus-y:

He’s a kid, I’ll leave it at that. He did retweet JuJu’s hit on Burfict, so there’s that. #onlybadwhenithappenstoyourteam I guess.

I guess I’ve dipped my toe into the muck. It’s yucky.