Kicked In The Nuts

One thing that drives me nuts about this time of year is all the people that post retarded messages on Facebook, Twitter, and G+ about how they are going to “Kick 2011 in the nuts” and hope 2012 is better. Really? Now I could go all Spock here and point out how a year is made up of what are arbitrary schedules that mean absolutely nothing. Instead I would rather point out how you are setting yourself up for a fall.

Sure it feel good to rant. Why else do you think I keep this site going? Venting is one of the greatest gifts we have as Americans! The problem is though that if you put so much effort into venting against something that is not alive, can not feel, and has no ability to understand, what is that doing to improve your situation for next year? You are the same people that make this grand New Years Resolutions only to keep them for about a week before giving in on that diet because “you’ve earned it!”

So I ask you this one thing. Instead of throwing insults at some nonexistent thing, try posting about how you are going to make 2012 different. What are you going to do to make sure that at this exact same time next year you are not posting the same lame drivel to your Facebook wall to give yourself some weak feeling of self importance? What are your plans to make sure that you don’t need to get on your high horse and belittle something that is less “real” than Santa Clause? At least when I rant about how he didn’t give me world domination again this year, at least he is an imaginary person. What’s a year? An imaginary what? Nothing.

I would constantly look for any hint of either of my brothers, but keep in mind that MySpace was founded in 2003. So my options were very limited at that time. One day while on the bus to work I was surfing the web with one of those wi-fi cards. I ran across the MySpace page for the band Jamie had started a few years before. Excitement instantly spiked! I had found my little brother! Then I started noticing the comment section was filled with “R.I.P Jamie”, and “Jamie, you will be missed.” With a little more research I found out my little brother was dead from a drug over dose. It was heroin and I was a few months late. Last I saw him he smoked a little pot here and there. I jumped on his ass for smoking a joint that was passed around at a show because of all the crap people can put in those joints that are passed around because they think it’s funny to get away with poisoning people. I told him that if he did that he should be very careful to make sure he knows what he is smoking. Now let me be clear about this. I am not against smoking pot. Even though I never have and never will smoke it myself, I support people that do make that choice. I could deal with my little brother doing it, but I wanted him to be safe about it. I do not believe that pot is a gateway drug. Just because you smoke pot, doesn’t mean you will become a junkie like my little brother did. The numbers speak for themselves. The great majority of people who smoke pot do not move to bigger more dangerous drugs. I believe that if you end up doing something as stupid as smack, you would have got to that point through something no matter if it was pot or something else.

Now you can talk to me until you are blue in the face, but I will always feel like it was partly my fault. I am the big brother. I was supposed to protect him and he is dead. I failed as a big brother. At least this is the thought that I will wrestle with until the day I die. If you try and shove your “It’s not your fault” crap at me you are a rude insensitive asshole who is doing nothing more than twisting the knife. Please go fuck yourself and shut the fuck up. This is my business and none of yours. There is a song by an artist named Warrel Dane called “Brother” that is very personal to me because of this. Warrel wrote it about being the little brother, but it feels like it is Jamie speaking to me from the grave. CLICK HERE to take a listen if you are brave. It is one of the heaviest songs ever written. One line speaks my message back to him perfectly though. “If I could erase, one moment of pain, I’d throw away everything even fame, If I could play god, do you know what I’d do?
I’d swim to your blood and cure the cancer in you.”

I say of all this to say that I give up trying to find my other brother without the help of all my internet friends. What separates us is my biological father. This man is so evil he falsified legal documents to steal the college money from my full blood sister and myself. I watched him trick illegal aliens into fixing up property, paying cash for rent on said property, only to have cops called on them for ‘squatting’ on the property they had just paid rent on. I witnessed him tricking a little old lady out of her home she built with her husband. I could go on, but you get the idea. My little brother that is still alive (as far as I know) is named Patrick Gabriel Allen.

All I can offer is my thanks to anyone who can help my Christmas wish come true. This IS NOT for some lame ass talk show. If some talk show calls I will tell them to go fuck themselves. My tears are not for your profit you selfish cunts! This is for the power of the internet only.

Fuck Off

Many of you know that I have a few major pet peeves with the some of the popular trends on Facebook. There are the You Tube Dj’s who think people give a crap about them posting a video we have all seen a billion times. Then there are the “Copy and paste this as a personal favor to me if you hate cancer because I knew someone who had it once.” Yeah, we have all known someone who has had cancer. Suck it up! It’s called life. A big part of that is death. And re-posting your message does jack shit to fight cancer. Ever hear you get out of it what you put into it? Yeah, you can copy and paste. It accomplished nothing. I shaved my head for children with cancer a few years ago. They got two 5 foot pony tails so that little girls could go on the playground and not get laughed at. But you can copy and paste. Good for you you lazy piece of crap. Go out and really do something or STFU already.

Oh, I’m sorry. Am I being too harsh for your sensitive self. Suck it up! This is my birthday and this is my message. You got to flood my inbox with ten billion “Happy Birthday” messages that meant nothing, so I think I should be allowed a little honesty. Notice I have my profile blocked from you posting on my wall? Did you ever wonder why? It was to stop you from flooding my wall with the same damn message ten billion times. Why should I let you take over my wall? It’s my wall and not yours! Don’t be so selfish. This is not about you. It is my birthday so this is about me. Suck it up!

So let me get this straight. You wanted to make my wall worthless by flooding it with the same damn message so that nothing that I wanted on my wall would show. Right? But since I blocked you from doing that now you flood my inbox with the same stupid crap making my inbox worthless too? Sorry but I find that extremely rude and I think you are the insensitive prick. So please go fuck yourself. Seriously.

If you think for a second that this is directly about you. Fucking great! Your ego has finally bit you in the ass. How does it feel to be taken down a few pegs? Now if you can suck in that bottom lip for a second I will inform you that this is not about you. It is about me. There was not one person who did this. There were tons! It was a flood before my birthday even happened. Otherwise I wouldn’t have posted this message. So it is not specifically about you. It is about the trend. If only you did it I wouldn’t be pissed.

Want to make it up to me? Want to actually do something positive for my birthday instead of being an annoying little twat? Go to http://RockMyMonkey.com/tv See the interview I did with Ozzy’s guitarist at the top? Well first click the link to the interview. I know the interview is already showing, but you want to be on that specific page for that specific interview not just the RMM TV page. Ah screw it. How about I make it easy for you? CLICK HERE! Now send that link to your Facebook, Twiiter, MySpace, and Stumble Upon. If you have a Digg, Reddit, or Mixxingbowl account vote it up or submit it there too. Then pat your self on the back. No really. You actually did something. Feels good eh?

Now this was only the first step. Now go out and give blood at the blood bank. Then maybe spend $20 on the best canned soup you can find and donate it to your local food bank (not just the crap you normally send). Do you have long hair? I don’t care if you need that look for your band. Go to LocksOfLove.org and donate it to some kids who really need it. Hey! Ya know what? Screw promoting my website or even telling me you did any of these things. Just go out and help the world around you. I mean really get your ass outside and physically help the world around you. It will make you feel ten times better than flooding my inbox with birthday spam. It will make me feel a lot better too that I can actually have control over my messages again. That would truly make this a happy birthday. Thanks for understanding, reading until the end, and actually caring enough to pay attention.

Bob Rivers

People spend millions on trying to make a video go viral. Clueless publicists in the music industry call a video viral just because it’s on the internet. But being the most popular morning show on the radio for the Puget Sound area of Washington State, Bob Rivers and crew have some major pull most do not have. They are making a video soon and they want it to go viral. These are the top ten steps the Bob Rivers show should do to go viral. Oh, and I’m not doing this to get mentioned on the show. This site would crash if you did and I have no ads. Just trying to welcome back the show I love.

1. Digg.com
This is a social news site. If you can get the listeners to all go in at once and vote for your submission within an hour or so it will hit the front page. This will get it a flood of views really quick and help it show up in the “trending” charts. Once Pedro submits it you have a few hours at best to get a ton of votes. Use those listeners!

2. Reddit.com
Same as Digg as far as it works. Kind of like Coke Vs Pepsi they are both very important. Maybe do Digg one hour and Reddit the next.

3. MixxingBowl.com
This one may not get as much traffic as the first two, but it is still important. Make this the third one to try since the listeners might be getting tired of voting. You will not need as many votes to ‘front page’.

4. StumbleUpon
This one is MAJOR! But it will take a little more work from the listeners. They need to download the SU toolbar, go to the YouTube page of the video, and click the thumbs up icon on the toolbar. This will send a major amount of traffic as well. Possibly more than Digg or Reddit if you get enough listeners to give it the thumbs up.

5. Facebook
Pedro knows how powerful this one is. Make sure and post it there at the same time as everywhere else.

6. Twitter
You never mention the Twitter on air, but it can be pretty powerful. Tell the listeners to use the hash tag #bobrivers with the YouTube link so you show up as ‘trending’.

7. MySpace
Although not as powerful as it once was, it still has a ton of users.

8. Trending?
Trending is a very important word when trying to go viral. There are tons of websites, software, and apps that are there only to inform the power users and journalists what is trending. This is why it is so important to get that big rush of traffic right off the bat.

9. Be goofy, silly, and don’t have a message
If it is very clear that you are just there to entertain, people are more likely to spread it around. You people know goofy like no one else.

10. Can you handle it?
Remember when I said not to mention this site on the air because it would crash the servers? If you do all the stuff above you will probably crash even your top of the line servers that host the Bob Rivers and KJR website. Very few hosts are set up to handle that big of a spike in traffic. My business site RockMyMonkey.com is hosted by a company called Squarespace. They are one of the few that can handle massive spike like you will be trying to create. Last I checked they offered a free two week trial. Maybe use that to give the YouTube link a more easy to remember url. BobRivers.squarespace.com or something could work.

Why did I do this? Partly because I want to welcome you back in my own geeky way, but also it would be cool to know I helped something truly go viral. Good luck!

Summer Sucks

I hate summer! No, I mean as in a passionate hatred. What really drives me nuts is you people endlessly talking about how great it is. I just don’t get it. What’s so freaking great about it? Make your own Top Ten List. This is mine. Suck it summer fans! I want my cold dry winter back! If it gets too cold you can put on an extra layer of clothing. If it gets too hot you can only strip so far before neighbors threaten to sue you for  the therapy bills they will incur after watching things jiggle that never should. Yeah, try to get rid of THAT image! HA! My revenge is complete!

Seriously, I’m not joking. I truly hate this time of year. If you agree please re-post on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Mixxing Bowl, etc. Vote it up if you are on Stumble Upon as well. Thanks.

1. Sweating without even doing anything
2. Having to stare directly into the sun while driving.
3. Nats in your teeth while getting some exercise on the bike trails
4. Bee’s stinging you just for walking by
5. The bright glare off of just about everything
6. Annoying bitches declaring how great the warm weather is every two seconds. STFU already!
7. Everyone is just expected to think camping is the most awesome thing since tv, internet, a comfortable bed, or anything else you leave behind while camping.
8. Neighbors think it’s ok to blast their shitty rap crap loud enough that you have to shut all your doors and windows while they work outside on their cars that never run anyways.
9. Co-workers are always sick on Friday and Monday leaving you to pick up their slack, then ask you to donate sick leave when they get sick in the winter.
10. Fat chick in tube tops that say “Hottie” found outside of Wal-Mart

Money

One thing that has always frustrated me about being a start up is some of the arrogance of it all. A start up can spend a hundred thousand in a year hunting down a hundred thousand dollars of investment money. How you ask? Well let’s say it cost’s about $5,000 for each attempt at getting start up capital. That would be the costs of air travel, cab fare, food, hotel, etc. Let’s break that down for those that are already trying to shoot holes in that theory. To travel to any major city is going to cost about $1,500 for air and hotel if you plan far enough in advance. You can blow through $100 in cab fare easy. Food? Well, unless you really luck out and get a hot dog cart right outside your hotel you are going to spend about $100 a day in food at least. You should figure about three days since you will want to get to the location with enough time to be prepared for something going wrong. So arrive the day before, go to the start up funding event the next day, go out for drinks that night so you can get more face time with those important people, then leave the next morning. If the event lasts a few days this price goes way up. So we are about $2,000 if we use a few cost cutting sites like Orbitz and the like.

Now if you are going to Tech Crunch Disrupt, but are not an actual presenter you need to pay up another $2,000 to be part of “Start Up Alley“. Most events like this will end up charging you in some way. So don’t for a second think that this is the exception. This is pretty standard. Now we are up to $4,000. Add in suit rental, drinks, costs of presentation, some swag to give away at your booth so people remember your company, etc and you can rack up that last $1,000 pretty easy. So there is your $5,000. For those that are more experienced at finding cheaper ways to travel, remember that you will probably need to pay for two people so you come across as a team.

Now I’m sure some can punch holes in this here and there. Sure, split some hairs if it makes you feel better. The truth is that if your start up is truly a new concept or idea people will take a long time to be convinced they should fund it. So you will have to go to tech and start up events a couple times a month. After about a year of this you should be able to get some “Angel” funding. Awesome! Congrats! You just spent $100,000 to get your first $100,000. Silly isn’t it?

Now why do we play this game? Easy. Sites like Tech Crunch and Mashable won’t give you press until you get that funding. Unless you are a major “Venture Capitalist” funded start up, you only get press for getting that funding. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you are doing that many tech and start up events in a year you are getting tons of face time with people you want to have friendships with. So sure it helps your start up to blow through a hundred grand to get a hundred grand, but it seems a bit silly at the same time. Are those relationships worth that expense? Maybe. Will you get as much out of a hundred grand without those relationships? Maybe. But the honest truth is that your start up has to somehow magically come up with that first hundred grand to get that second hundred grand. This is where entrepreneurs like myself want to spend a day every once in awhile just sticking our head in a vice grip and yelling at a close friend to crank it just a little tighter. Not that I’m biter or anything.

If you want to take pitty on me, submit some stories to FanUpRising.com

Koh Koh Merlot 2010

So as I have said before HERE, I am a beer snob. I love to mock wine drinkers just for fun as I did HERE.  But I am also a very curious person. As unpleasant as I find 99% of the wines out there, I have always wondered if there are any wines out there that don’t taste like either a Jolly Rancher or some nasty child’s cough syrup. This quest really started to kick into gear this last summer when I was able to meet SEATTLE WINE GAL at the legendary, awesome, and sadly final GNOMEDEX conference.  She had a very small wine tasting and was very patient trying to find a wine I would enjoy. The problem was that there was a very small selection because there was only a few hundred people to serve. Well today I went with MY WIFE to the CAPITAL FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL to continue my mission. This place was packed with what I would guess was thousands of people, almost 50 winery’s, 15 brewery’s, and  about 20 food venders. This thing was massive enough to serve my needs to find out if there was a wine I might enjoy.

So the beers they had were pretty uninteresting to me. They were either pig swill from Budwiser or beers I have tried

Hoodsport Pear Wine

enough times that I had no need to taste them. I already knew which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t. I’m a beer snob and the beer selection they had was pathetic. So after a quick overview of what they had to offer, the mission was on. Since I know jack about wine, I had my wife lead the way. I didn’t bother keeping track of the wines that totally failed me. They tasted like the standard Jolly Rancher or some really unpleasant child’s cherry cough syrup. The first wine that didn’t suck was the Koh Koh Merlot 2010 from CLASSIC WINE MAKERS. It wasn’t amazing, but if I was at a friends house and they served this with diner I could drink it without complaint. I could tolerate it. It was very much ok. It tied for third place with one of the last wines I tried.

The second wine that didn’t suck turned out to be my favorite. It was a Pear Wine from HOODSPORT WINERY. My wife had two thoughts. Was it that this was a dessert wine or was it that this had citrus? Most wine’s are made with a very sharp tasting berry of some sort and come off as sickly sweet. This had a more mild flavor. It was like pear juice mixed with Karo Syrup.  Way more sweet than the beers I am used to, but it was the best wine I had found all day. If stuck in a

Tanjuli Orange Muscat 2006

situation where wine was all there was, I would go for this one. Hell, if I was in the right mood I might even enjoy it. Most of the time I would probably still prefer a good beer though. But this one got first place in my book. Hell, this one might even be worth keeping around the house! I didn’t love it, but it was good. And that is saying something coming from me.

Coming in right behind the Pear Wine was my second place choice Orange Muscat from TANJULI. Again with the citrus it seems. It seems to cut through the sickly sweet taste of normal wine. Like the Koh Koh Merlot, I wouldn’t say I would enjoy a glass of the stuff. I would say that in a situation where wine was what was being served in the social gathering, this is one I could drink without making that face your kid makes when you make them take medicine.  Not something that would excite me or anything, but I could hang. This one is almost worth keeping around the house, but only if my wife drinks it too. I might have a single glass.

The last wine I tried that was worth mentioning was the Chenin Blanc 2009 from KYRA WINES.  Again I would have

Kyra Wines Chenin Blanc 2009

to say that this was a wine that I could hang with, but I wouldn’t say it excited me. I could hang with it though if the situation arose. It was tolerable, but not worthy of having around the house. Now please understand that for a beer snob like myself, finding a wine that is tolerable is a pretty massive thing.  As a rule I find wine to be the most vile category of beverages man has made. For the most part I just do not get the obsession people have with it. But the fact is that in some social situations it is good to know what wines a non-wine drinker can hang with so they don’t come off as anti-social and rude. This was the reason for my quest.

So sorry SEATTLE WINE GAL, but I still have not found a wine that I would say I love. I still have not found a wine that I would say gets me excited. There are a ton of beers I would pick over even the Pear Wine that came in first. But in the right mood and maybe with the right meal I would enjoy a very occasional Pear Wine. Next year I plan to continue my quest because we have narrowed down the things to look for in a wine. First off, it must have citrus. Second, it must be a dessert wine. With this new knowledge my quest will continue. Maybe SEATTLE WINE GAL can make it down next time so her and MY WIFE can conspire and find that one elusive wine that makes me stop mocking you goofballs that love this beverage so much.

Oh, and the number one rule about tasting wine? Breathe out when you drink it because it all stinks like a garbage strike on a hot summer day. Oh, and I must mention that the music was way closer to my tastes than I thought it was going to be. No, there wasn’t any thrash bands, but they did rock way harder than I expected. I was shocked the 60 and up crowd didn’t run screaming.

Daemon

There is nothing more frustrating than when people who are still wrong say “I told you so.” Now I have this one friend who constantly tells me I should ‘cover bigger bands’. This is not what I am talking about really. Because that friend never gives enough details to make any sense anyways. What does he mean by bigger? Bigger draw at venues? Bigger record sales? Bigger budgets spent to push them? Being on GMA? How much hype a band has means nothing. We all know that. I have seen bands with multimillion dollar budgets, appear on GMA, and then play to a half empty house at a 500 capacity club some Metal band packed two nights ago. That Metal band will never get on GMA. Hype means nothing. Record sales? This means nothing either anymore. The industry keeps a horrid record of such things so they can have a paper trail to prove why they don’t owe an artist. I could go on and on, but the truth is that telling someone like me they should cover bigger bands means nothing until you know enough about the industry to know what that means. The truth is that I have never rejected an interview because a band sold too many records. I never have an I never will.

Then there are people who have such wackado political ideas that you couldn’t do what they are calling you to do if you wanted to. It’s like the employee who tells a boss they are doing the wrong thing by closing shop after a business has failed. That employee doesn’t understand that their paycheck has to come from somewhere. They think that you have a choice to close the business or not. If the ledger doesn’t add up, it doesn’t add up. I have another friend who is against unions because some of his non-union friends don’t get paid as much as a union guy like me. I try to explain to him that the suits would love nothing more than to bring everyone down to that level, but the unions would rather bring every common worker up. Are you for the common worker or the suit trying to take advantage of said common worker? He can’t see that far. All he knows is that a friend isn’t making as much as another and it would be more fair if everyone got paid the same for the same work. He can’t comprehend paying everyone more. Only less.

Of course the knee jerk reaction argument that has been programmed into everyone’s head to that is that money doesn’t come out of nowhere. As I said before, if the ledger doesn’t add up, the ledger doesn’t add up. This has been a very impressive dupe. This is when bullshit is so stunning you have to stand in awe of the balls it takes for the suits to get the more gullible to believe it. While they buy their tenth vacation home, seventh yacht, and go on their 2nd monthly vacation, we work paycheck to paycheck cheering them on. No, this is not socialism I am pushing. What I am saying is that workers should get a living wage. Yes, we need some rich to fuel the dream so others are encouraged to work harder. But how rich do they need to be and how poor do we need to be. That is the question.

Pure Capitalism would destroy us. Pure Socialism would destroy us. It’s all about a balance between the two. Let’s say just as an example that a suit could gain one nice big yacht, a really nice vacation home, and two amazing vacations per year. This is way better than I will ever get in my life. But let’s say that if they cut down to that still extremely impressive lifestyle it would allow them to pay their grunt workers a livable wage. Is that socialism? No, because they are still annoyingly rich. We are still the grunts. Unions are not about paying an employee the most. They are about paying an employee the least amount possible to be considered fair. No one has ever made it rich being a union worker.

Yet, we still have the Glenn Beck fans, the Tea Party goofs, and the Rand Paul jokers saying ‘See I told you so.’ about things that make even less sense on the ledger. The problem is that their followers are too short sighted to look at the big picture to add up all the math. Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, just means jobs are sent over seas. Or would it be a good thing to have the working conditions of China here is the U.S.? The truth is that this subject can’t be thoroughly discussed in one blog post. Maybe an entire book. Even better so it would have to be a series of college classes. It would have to be a mixture of history and economics to totally encompass all that has to be looked at. Otherwise all we are doing is puking out talking points that don’t even graze the surface. So until then people like me will have to play the fool on the hill when you short sighted types say, ‘I told you so’ without knowing how foolish you look with that foot in your mouth.

Can I ask you one favor? Please question your favorite news source. If your favorite news source calls into question all the third party (non-partisan) fact checking sites, maybe you shouldn’t trust them? If a news source is trying to make you think they are the only one true source run as fast as you can from them. Throughout history this always leads to some really scary stuff.

No Inbox Zero

In the tech world people go all kinds of nuts about how important it is to get to “inbox zero“. The reality is that it doesn’t matter at all. It only matters if you think it matters. It is all about perception. I tell people this and it’s like telling them that going to church is against the bible (which it is, but that is another debate). People have been told this lie so many times that they just can’t see any other way of looking at things. The reality is that it depends on the person. For me it makes zero difference.

Some see emails that are more than a day old as ‘clutter‘. I call it organization. If I get an email from a press agent about a major tour coming, I keep that info there in case I need it. That email contains a ton of info. It tells me first off which of my many contacts is in charge of that event. For the major package tours it can also list the correct contact for each of the bands on that tour. That email can list all the dates on the tour. So if I need to beef up a story about the event all the info is just right there in my inbox. For me that is a stress reliever that it is there. It saves me time. Sure I could look up a contact. Do I look for that contact under what company they work for? That tells me nothing about what artists they are working at that moment. Since press agents work a project for three months, this can change constantly. It would cost me several days per week to keep a database of those contacts and who is working who current. It would also stress me out beyond belief. Honestly I’m not even sure how I would go about it. It’s just easier to keep that email there conveniently waiting for me in case I need it. Once the tour has past my city, and my content from the tour is posted, I usually delete it. But not a second before.

That is just one example of why I keep some emails in my inbox. I could write an entire book on the reasons not to delete things from my inbox, but the point is that there are plenty of good reasons. The stress created by removing those items is way higher than the stress relieved (none) from being at inbox zero. About a year ago I worked like hell to get to inbox zero. It really sucked. It was pure hell and caused a ton of problems for me. How good did it feel? It felt like I had climbed a mountain to move a pebble one inch. How hard should you work at climbing a mountain to move a pebble one inch?

I don’t care how hip or cool some of you think it is to get to inbox zero. I’m not doing it. It doesn’t work for me. Get it through your head that not everyone is the same. Not everyone’s use of email is the same. Maybe I get more email than you? Maybe the industry I work for creates situations where it is a very bad thing to just delete email. I’m sure that some have jobs where getting to inbox zero might just take an extra hour or so. I’m sure some of you have jobs where deleting that email won’t create major stressful situations for you. Good for you. What do you want, a gold star? It doesn’t work for everyone. For some it would be a major undertaking and then create major issues.

So I said that achieving inbox zero was like climbing a huge mountain so you can move a pebble an inch. What I left out was that the pebble was keeping that volcano from erupting. Good job dumbass. Enjoy the lava bath.

So everyone knows that my favorite pet peeve right now is people who post 20-30 YouTube music videos a day. Seriously people, there is no need to post a link to every single You Tube music video you listen to or watch. You do not work for MTV and you are not a video DJ. The worst are the ones that post the same songs every single day. Copy and paste is anti-social in my book.

Now the robo response (knee jerk response that requires no thinking) is to say “Would you rather people post what they are eating?” Of course not. I would rather they put some effort into it. I also despise those auto posts that provide you with something funny so you don’t have to think. I want something from your head. I want to know what you are thinking. I want to know the things you have achieved that day. I want to know what obstacles you are overcoming. Facebook is like anything else. The more you put into it, the more you will get out of it. Use your imagination people!

Now there are legit reasons to post YouTube videos. Here is my top ten list of legit reasons to post a YouTube music video on your Facebook profile. Enjoy?

10. Your band did a cover of a song a few nights ago and you want to get some feedback from people other than your IRL friends.

9. A band you love that most people are not aware of releases a new music video.

8. You just re-discovered a song by a band most of your friends don’t even know about.

7. A really bad cover band makes fools of themselves

6. Any band releases a new music video. After a day assume you are late to the game and others have already seen it. You re-posting it makes you look like a noob and just annoys people.

5. The song helps make a point you are trying to get across.

4. It’s a new spin on an old theme. Such as one of those misinterpreted lyrics videos. Sure it’s a song we have all heard a million times, but the reason you are posting it is for the humor of the wrong lyrics.

3. It’s newsworthy. If a band member dies, you are letting others know you will be at the show, etc.

2. You are in the band. If you are in the band this is called self promotion. When it comes to being a whore for the stuff you yourself create (or are a part of in some way) my rules and tolerance are massively lenient.

1. You heard this drives Mark Carras freakin’ nuts and it’s really fun to poke him with a stick and watch him overreact.