Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater

Protesting Is Dead

Yeah, I know this blog has turned into nothing more than me ranting endlessly about things that normal people barely even notice. Well, I’m not normal. In fact normal bugs the living hell out of me! So this is my blog and I will rant to my 3 readers if I want to!

So today’s rant is about protesting. This world is so full of protesting failure. The reason is that there is no passion in it anymore. People protest because they are bored and have nothing else to do. It reminds me of that song “It’s Saturday” by King Missile.

A picket sign has lost all meaning:
So the right wing wackos picket abortion clinics and the left wing hippies picket against the war. Has either noticed that none of them have ever been won over by the others picket signs? Correct me if I am wrong, but a right wing wacko has never looked at an anti-war sign held by some dirty hippie and suddenly changed their mind, right? Anyone ever know of a situation where a bleeding heart liberal has seen a group protesting an abortion clinic and changed their entire political position the second they saw the anti-abortion sign? Nope. Didn’t think so. The truth is that the picket sign has lost all meaning, but yet bored people who have nothing better to do with their time continue to waste their time doing so. In fact, many people would say that this behavior only solidifies a persons hatred for the opposition. So your picket signs only make it less likely that a person will see your side of things. Good job loser!

Are you racist xenophobes or not?
However, this is better than the Facebook protests. These are people who only care enough about something to click a button with their mouse. They only care enough about a cause to devote one second. Wow, that’s passion! The thing is that you can go into that persons profile and find contradictory like pages. On one hand they “like” the page for “If I live in America I shouldn’t have to push one to speak English”, but then also “like” a page saying Arizona should be ashamed of themselves. Come on people, make up your mind! Are you racist xenophobes or not!

Look In The Mirror Idiot!
So why should I care? Well, it is dumbing down the act of protesting. People don’t even know what protesting is anymore. All they know how to do is bitch, moan, and complain. Union halls have less people show up to contract negotiation meetings because “the union never does anything for them”. The problem is that these people don’t realize that they are the union that isn’t doing anything for them. It’s like me complaining that I’m fat while I stuff big hunks of fudge down my gullet. No really, could someone explain to me why I’m fat? Oh, and please hand me another cheeseburger.

Boycott BP Protests!
The true inspiration for this blog post though is all the lip service people are giving to the most apathetic and not at all thought out protesting of British Petroleum. Understand, I do think that they are parasitical bastards that need to be hung up by their testicles in the town square. My problem is that your protests are giving them way too much entertainment. The truth is that no matter how much we scream and yell, nothing will be done. Even my right wing friends will find this video to be one great piece from MSNBC…

Go Electric Or Shut The Hell Up!
They know that you will still get in your car. This means that you will still burn fossil fuels. This means that you will still buy their products. B.P. products do not always go under the B.P. name. So even if you avoid B.P. when their gas is 50% of the price of other gas stations, you will still buy B.P. products. Oh, I know some of you have lists of every company you can find with a connection to B.P., but how many people do you think will keep to that list for a few years? I promise you that it will not be enough to make even the slightest dent in the collection of $100 bills the heads of B.P. use to wipe their asses with. You are trying to motivate people to keep to this list when they have been trained to protest by doing nothing more than clicking a like button on Facebook while watching America’s Idol (sic) and stuffing themselves with food from Wal-Mart.

Protesting is dead. It was killed by America’s passion for apathy and sloth.

Are You A Highly Suggestible Moron?

Do you ever get the feeling that people on Facebook will join anything they can click with a mouse? Ever get the feeling that these are not the things people actually care about, but just pathetically bored people who just want an excuse to click things with their mouse? Ever seen that online joke where the website shows a great big shiny red button. Above that is text that says something like “Want to know how to keep an idiot busy for hours? Click this button to find out!” When you click the button it just changes the font or something. Facebook is turning into a more involved version of that same joke. It used to be about networking, but not so much anymore.

I Blame Facebook
Facebook had a great idea to allow business, bands, and whoever else to start fan pages. Then people started using that as a way to share a funny line of text. “Click here if you want someone to pull your finger.” Or even the ones that take advantage of your moral outrage. “Click here if you think America has lost it’s way.” I have even seen one that pulls at your heart strings with “Click like if you love your daughter”. Of course some may say that last one has more to do with dealing with the guilt of spending more time clicking stupid like buttons than spending time with your children, but I will save that debate for another time. It got to the point that Facebook caved. Instead of doing something to separate being an actual fan of something or agreeing with an idea, they just switched the fan with a like. The problem is that this dumbed things down instead of raising things to new levels.

Stupid Pages For Stupid People?
The original idea was to find people with like minds that you may want to network with. Do you really want to network with other people who “Don’t like to be lied to?” What kind of important business is there to talk about on the fan (now like) page for “Can I have a coke? Is Pepsi alright?” or “Uh, Is monopoly money alright?” Not much I’m willing to bet. But what about if you want to “fan” the unsigned band Mongrel? Well now you can only “like” them. I think that is pretty lame.

There’s A Shiny Red Button!?
The reality is that Facebook users have shown that they love to push the shiny red button. Pushing that shiny red button will keep the idiots busy for hours. That is fine. The problem is that Facebook doesn’t differentiate. This might increase the levels of brainless fun, but it decreases the levels of powerful networking. Go through the things you once clicked that you were a fan of. Take a look at the walls of every page you have “liked”. How many others are part of that group? How dead is the wall? People only cared enough to click a mouse. They didn’t care enough to discuss the topic at hand with other people who think that way.

Don’t Be A Joiner
As much as it kills me to say it, this is not the fault of the “joiners”. Most Facebook users are nothing more than brainless joiners. Even otherwise smart people turn into brainless joiners when they log into the site. Facebook needs to do something quick to not just cater to that, but to cater to the service as a networking tool as well. Their mistake was trading one for the other. Instead of just switching everything to “like”, they should have given people a choice to keep the “Fan” button. The like pages should have no wall and very little features. Those people have shown they have no interest in anything other than the initial click of that mouse. The networkers (which are many times the same people) have shown they DO want to network. So give them those tools. The important thing though is for Facebook to differentiate the two.

Everyone Is An Idiot, Even Me
So in closing, most people are highly suggestible morons. Idiots are the majority. If Facebook doesn’t want to be the next MySpace (or worse the next Friendster) they need to work hard to fix this. Otherwise the idiots will get bored and move on to the next big shiny red button. Think you can avoid just sitting here clicking a big shiny red button? I don’t. In fact, if you CLICK HERE you can take a test to see how well you can avoid clicking the big shiny red button.

Don’t Forget The Social In Social Networking

This could also be titled, “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” I follow a ton of people on social networks. So many that there is always someone asking me to go vote for their photo in a photo contest, their baby in a baby contest, and of course their band in a battle of the bands contest. Why should I care about the thing you care about?

Understand what you are asking me to do. Most of the time I have to register to some site I don’t care about, give them my personal info (so they can sell it to some spammer), and then vote for this thing I couldn’t give two shits about.

Now it may seem like I’m saying this just to be an asshole, but I do have a point. Keep in mind that people will feel like they have to go vote for that “cute” baby picture if you have voted on their stuff. Have you been active on their site? Have you shared a link of theirs? If so they will probably be active on the stuff you want them to be active on. That is what social media is all about. So go post a comment on their blog. Spread a link to someone else’s site on your Twitter and Facebook. Scream it loud and proud. Make sure to make a big enough deal about them that they want to return the favor.

Oh, and if you want me to feel the need to help promote your stuff just be active on HeavyAsHell.com. That is what I’m passionate about. If someone was to start submitting links there and spreading the HAH link around to get votes, I would have no choice but to do everything in my power to help them with what they needed help promoting. I say this only to make a point. In social media, cheerleading begets cheerleading. If you work your ass off to promote others, they will work their ass off to promote you.

In closing, if I didn’t vote for that thing you wanted me to vote on there might have been a reason. If I go out of my way to help someone and they do not return the favor, I don’t do shit for them until they do. Most won’t admit it, but they are the same way. So don’t forget the social part of social networking. I don’t give a shit about your thing, but I’ll pretend to if you pretend to care about my stuff. Deal?

What do white trash red necks drink now?

So white trash rednecks used to drink Budweiser beer. But what do they drink now that Budweiser is no longer an American Beer? In 2008 Anheuser-Busch sold the majority of their stock to Belgian-Brazilian beer giant InBev. So inbred rednecks have had a few years to decide what to get drunk with. I know they hate microbrews, but at least microbrews are made in America. Want an American made beer? Then a microbrew is pretty much your only choice now. Sure they could sober up but we all know there is no way that will happen. So what do they drink? Do they continue to drink Budweiser and lie to themselves that it is an American beer? Is it a “Don’t confuse me with the facts” kind of thing? It’s like Christian Republicans calling Liberals “bleeding hearts” without a clue as to how that comes across. Wait, aren’t Christians supposed to be the compassionate ones? So why are “Those hippie liberals” called “bleeding hearts” then? These things keep me up at night. How can these people not see how RETARDED these things make them look? Yes, I could mention that whole Sarah Palin thing, but why bother?

The real point of this blog post is actually about the state of political debates and jokes in today’s era. Other than say Jon Stewart, most people are using recycled jokes that make no real point at all. I have a friend on Facebook that does this all the time. There was this joke told where a liberal friend told this joke…

The Pope and Glenn Beck are on the same stage in front of a huge crowd. The Pope leans towards Mr. Beck and said, “Do you know that with one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy ? This joy will not be a momentary display, like that of your followers, but go deep into their… hearts and they’ll forever speak of this day and rejoice!” Glenn replied, “I seriously doubt that. With one little wave of your hand? Show me.” So the Pope slapped him.

Now if you hate Glenn Beck that joke might be funny, but it is a perfect example of what is wrong with political humor now. There is no facts. It’s all spin. This exact same joke was told by a conservative friend only days later.

The Pope and Nancy Pelosi are on the same stage in front of a huge crowd. The Pope leans towards Mrs. Pelosi and said, “Do you know that with one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy ? This joy will not be a momentary display, like that of your followers, but go deep into their… hearts and they’ll forever speak of this day and rejoice!” Pelosi replied, “I seriously doubt that. With one little wave of your hand? Show me.” So the Pope slapped her.

Ok, so we hate them and they hate us and no one should ever listen to the other side? Do I get it now? This is the mentality of America when it comes to politics. Because of this no debate can happen. This is why we will never have

At one point he asked a child what they wanted to be when they grew up. The child said they wanted to be president. Then he asked the child what the first thing they would do if they were president. The child said they would feed the homeless and provide them with homes. So he said that he would pay the child to pull weeds all day and do other hard labor yard work so they could then give the money to a local homeless guy. The child asked why the homeless man couldn’t get a job himself. He then told this child “Welcome to the Republican party”. Now not only is that a massive twist of what the two political parties are about, but that kind of entrapment wouldn’t even be allowed in a court of law! Her lawyer would be objecting left and right! And for good reason too. It’s a twisting of facts. Do all liberals think an entire pay check should be given up to charity? Of course not and I would bet money my friend knows this. He just thought it would be cute or funny to mess with this child’s head. Of course that child is easier to debate with. It’s easy to corner them like he did.

I have a feeling that this type of twisting of facts comes from watching too much Fox News. They are the kings of twisting facts to fit their marketing agenda. Of course MSNBC is close behind for the liberal side. News is becoming less about facts and journalism and more about placating to one side or the other. Now I don’t know if this watering down of journalism came first or if America’s “Don’t confuse me with the facts” mentality came first. Either way it seems to have started around the time when Bush was trying to sell us the Iraq war. It was sold to us that if you were against the war in Iraq that you were against the troops. Ignore the fact that many of the solders over there were against the war as well, but had to follow orders despite their personal beliefs. They sold us the idea that to be a patriot meant to never question our leaders. Ignore the fact that this country was founded on the idea of the people questioning their leaders. This “Don’t confuse me with the facts” mentality has even gone so far as questioning our presidents citizenship, birthplace, and legal right to even be president! Now as I’ve said, I encourage the questioning of our leaders. It’s the patriotic thing to do. However, when those questions have been answered it’s time to move on to the next question. I gave someone a link to a Snopes article on this and they questioned Snopes! They might as well have said “Don’t confuse me with the facts!”

My real worry is that we are getting to the point where we can’t even recognize the facts when they are presented. Opinion and fact are blurring together. After I finish thinking about this, I ask myself What do I drink now?”

The problem with causes on Facebook

Many already know my problems with all apps and games on Facebook. I not only STRONGLY discouraged them, but have pretty much kept a zero tolerance to them for my own account. Although I have not kept a zero tolerance to fan pages and groups, I am still pretty strict. Some may wonder why I wouldn’t join a group of fan a page of something that I totally agree with. Well, the reason is simple. My time is short and I find that the best causes have the most pathetic fan pages.

People see a group that stands for something they believe in and they just click a button and join right up. It is so easy that they put almost no thought into it. Why is that a bad thing? Well, they put so little thought into joining that joining is all they ever do. There are fan pages with thousands of members and a dead wall! I joined Facebook to network and communicate. There won’t be much communication on a fan page with a dead wall. It does better for the cause for me to just post an update stating my belief. Why is it better to NOT join the group or fan page? Well, think about that dead wall. If a cause has a dead wall it makes the cause look weak. It shows that the people that believe in that cause are lazy and will not do much more than click a link to join a Facebook group. It let’s the enemy know that the group in no threat. Where as if you just post an update stating your thoughts on the case, it just opens up communication. No dead wall to let the enemy know it is a dead cause to be dismissed.

So just because I don’t join your fan page for “Pull up your pants you look like a douche”, doesn’t mean I’m going to start walking around with my pants below my waist looking like a homeless bum. It just means I would rather not remind the enemy that people against the homeless bum look are apathetic. So no matter how serious or comical your group or fan page is, do not bother to send me an invite. I believe enough in the cause to NOT join!

You ever get so tired that you loose any shred of common sense? Well, if I had any common sense I would head for bed right now. Instead I need to get a rant out of my head. Facebook has two “features” that their users seem to confuse. One of them is the great “like” button. This is for when someone you follow says, posts, or submits something you like. You have nothing intelligent to say about it, but you agree, enjoy, or somehow are reacting in a positive manner to said item. It keeps people from the ultra-retarded comments like “good post” or “cool”. Nothing intelligent to say? Just click the like button and shut the hell up. Good stuff.

Another feature is the ability to create a fan page for anything. On the surface this seems like a good idea. I can create a fan page for the Teamsters Union and find other Teamsters brothers and sisters from around the country (yes, I am a proud card carrying member). I can maybe create a fan page for the cartoon The Tick and find other fans of this cult comic. When used like this it is a great thing. Maybe if they limited people to only being able to create one or two fan pages this thing would not have gotten so out of control. Now we have fan pages that would have been better submitted as simple comments. There are fan pages of “George Bush is a Douche”. Now of course I agree that George Bush is a douche. If I see someone say that I will click the like button in a second. I will not however clutter my Facebook profile with ten million fan page memberships of everything I dislike. Do we really need a fan page for farting? Do I need to connect with other people who like to fart? What good does it do for me to connect with others who would join a fan page for “Sex”? I am married and my wife is the only one who needs to know what a fan I am of sex. I don’t see the benefit of networking with other people who join a fan page of “Hating Will Ferrel”. Now you all know that I have a passionate hatred for Will Ferrel that would give any psychologist a lifetime of research, but I would not get anything out of connecting with others who see him as the talentless hack he is.

Maybe I don’t get it. I use Facebook to network, communicate, and maybe find old friends I have lost contact with. I don’t need busy work. I want to share cool articles I find, educate myself a little, find good music , and plan a meet up or two. I don’t have time to kill. I don’t need clutter, noise, or shiny things to distract me. This misuse of the fan page has made me loose interest in joining any fan page on Facebook at all. It has ruined it for me! I’m afraid that if I join one that does have a purpose it will open a Pandora’s Box I could never close. If I accept a fan page that I think might have something to offer me, I am afraid I will be turned into a zombie that joins every fan page that I think is “cute” or “witty”.

The thing I really wonder is, doesn’t it destroy all impact if you just go click happy and join and “like” everything. Are we really communicating or have we turned into placating robots that are not really even paying attention to each other. If that is the case then the social networking experiment has already failed.

How To Survive Facebook

This is another post that although written with bands in mind, it will help many non-musicians as well I think. Facebook is a very busy site. It is full of what many call ‘noise’ and if you are a busy person it can be very annoying. However, there is a way for the busy person to survive the noise of Facebook. If you go to my profile on Facebook I have a notice right at the top that says I reject all the garbage. The problem with Facebook is that it is made for people that need “busy work”. They need brainless time killers to pass the time. If you are one of the people that spend tons of time with all this busy work, you are not a busy person. Seriously, if you need tons of time killers…you have time to kill. I however do not have time to kill, so do everything I can to reject every single time killer. I don’t have time to kill.

It is very tempting to get caught up in the brainlessness that is Facebook though. It ends up being a game in and of it’s self to kill all the time killers. One thing you must understand though is that Facebook is designed to play on your guilt. When a friend sends you an invite you end up feeling like a total jerk for not accepting the invite. Don’t! The truth is that your friend probably doesn’t know they sent you the invite, didn’t intend to send you the invite, and has no way to track who reject the invite. When they go to set up the app for themselves, it sends an invite to all their contacts by default. Most people feel bad about it after it is sent anyways. No friend wants to fill your Facebook inbox with unwanted messages. We all hate spam, but Facebook by default love what sending that spam does for their network. So don’t feed the spam monster and just reject everything.

A few of you by now might be wondering why I am on Facebook if I don’t want to take a quiz to find out which member of the Back Street Boys I am, how big of an American Idol fan I am, or which wanna be vampire from Twilight I most want to see ‘glow’ in the sunlight? I ask those people what is so wrong with just plain old conversation? Share a photo, share a news article, or just ask a question. Do we need an app to tell a joke? Do we need an app to post a poll question? Facebook can be a great networking tool, but it can also be the most evil time killer around. So please take a stand with me for true interaction, conversation, and networking. Reject every single poll, quiz, survey, app, game, and invitation. We no longer have time to kill!

So now that you have created tons of social networking accounts to promote your band, how do you use them? As with anything there are unspoken rules. Imagine all the horrid stuff noobs do when they come to see your band for the first time. There are so many noob mistakes you can do at a metal show, there are just as many in social networking. Mostly you have to keep in mind that it is about being social. Don’t just post stuff about your band. Reply to others about the things that are important to them as well.

1. Talk to people about stuff other than your band
2. DO NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS EVER!
3. Don’t post a flood of stuff in a small amount of time.
4. Post at least a few times a day whenever possible
5. Keep it “work safe” because most are surfing from their job
6. Make sure you get as many fans & friends to join you on these social networks
7. Run tons of giveaways through just those social networks
8. Friend people back or you look like a snob.
9. Don’t use trickery to get attention. Always be honest!
10. Keep your followers & followed ratio close

These are pretty general things. This stuff works on Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, MySpace bulletins, or any others. I hope they help.

Now there is tons more we could get into but I like to keep these updates nice and simple. This kind of thing can be a lot to swallow at times. Some people will come at you with tons of unwanted advice and will make you feel like a 13 year old kid being taught guitar by Yngwie Malmsteen. Yngwie only knows how to go full speed, so his lessons are pretty useless. So I hope I don’t go Yngwie on you people. If I do let me know.

Now I was going to blog about HeavyAsHell for today’s update, but I think it would be more important to make that post on Monday. So you will all just have to wait. Instead I am going to blog about the site LinkedIn. Now many of you may not know about LinkedIn because it’s not one of the hot and trendy social websites. This is not the new cool place for kids to hang out. This is the business social network. Now for the longest time I didn’t really care about this site. Then I discovered they had forums they called “Groups”. I started looking around and found several music industry “groups”. I joined the two that I thought fit me the best. Now I am networking with all levels of music industry types.

With all the other social networks I have talked about in the past two weeks it was about finding more fans. This one is about finding contacts. You might want to give this job to the member of the band that is always way too serious and really has a business mentality (probably the one reading this article). You might as well just accept everyone that wants to be on your contact list for this site. One person may know another person, that may know the guy that gets you on a really amazing tour. So this site is all about that other type of networking bands need to do.

Don’t just beg for help “getting a record deal” though. There are tons of people doing that and they almost never get anyone of value. That is not the way to do it. Posting new topics should be about ten percent of what you do on this site. It should mostly be about replies. Be very picky about when you plug your stuff. Otherwise you will be dismissed as a spammer. Instead ask questions, give your viewpoint on a debate, offer info someone else needs. Then when you do plug your stuff in that ten percent of activity people will pay more attention.

It may not be as fun as playing with the millions of time waster type apps on Facebook, but this will do your band 100 times more good. Why waste time anyways. Screw Facebook I say!

Why Ping.fm can be the most powerful tool a band has

Ok, this is where things get very powerful. Imagine you are busy as hell, but have time to send a quick text message while in the bathroom. With this one text message you update your band’s profile pages at 32 of the hottest social networking sites. No joke! With this service you can update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Plurk, LinkedIn, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Blogger, Identi.ca, Friendster, Delicious, BrightKite, Yahoo 360, Plaxo Pulse, Koornk, Live Journal, Diigo, Bebo, YouAre, Hi5, Multiply, Mashable, Yammer, Kwippy, Flickr, Xanga, Utterli, WordPress.com, Imeem, Rejaw, & Seesmic with nothing but a simple text message. Now it may be a pain to get it all set up, but after you do that you don’t even have to log in. Do I have your interest?

Now Ping does have a nice mobile version you can use, a simple full scale online version, and I think some freaky email version. I have never tried the email version though. Why bother when I can do it with a text message? Of course most will not want to sign up to all those networks, but if you are a band that wants to network with as many fans worldwide as possible I would. Imagine if each one of these sites got you a few sales of your cd a day? Not saying that will happen…you might suck. I’m just giving you something to think about.

Although you don’t have to sign in to Ping ever again, I would do that at least once a month just to make sure everything is working the way it should. I would also check a couple of these sites a day to make sure they are getting your updates. You might also want to log in to all these sites just to accept “friend” requests, answer messages, and make sure the account is doing what it should. Check 5 of them a week and you should be fine. I really wouldn’t do more than that. You have music to create after all.

Now I know that most of my articles are longer than this, but why say more? That is the beauty of Ping.fm is that it is simple. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me through Twitter, Plurk, or better yet the comments below.