Welcome To Hell MeatGoblet.com

Excuse me everybody *clink clink*, I have an announcement to make.  I have decided to change the domain name of my website.  When I originally chose the lame-o name “liquidribcage”, it was borne out of the desperation of needing to register a domain before I could start posting my nonsense.  I’ve always been a big fan of assonance (please don’t tell my parents), and desperately wanted a two word title that harnessed its glorious power.  I passed on numerous word combinations like “digital milk” “noodle juice” and “faucet sauce”, because they were either already used by someone else in some capacity, or didn’t quite fit the content I was planning on writing.  That content of course being half-assed, sophomoric, internet scribblings.

After vomiting all sorts of brain droppings on this site over the course of 2+ years and 60ish posts, I’ve started to desire some type of palpable readership, which I will never get with my complete lack of promotion, combined with the fact that over a billion other websites exist out there.  I’m horribly inadequate in the field of self-promotion, but figure my site should have a somewhat memorable or marketable name before I start dumping effort (or money even) into promoting it.  Liquidribcage sounded like the name of a terrible goth band or something, whereas MeatGoblet sounds like an awesome place where magical, delicious things happen.  Regardless of whether it’s a fitting name or not, I’ll be keeping it due to how much of a hassle it was to change, including needing to retool my wordpress and manually re-link every single image in every post on my site.  I should probably actually put some effort into coming up with a bitchin’ color scheme and design as well.

So welcome to the same thing with a different name.  Hopefully anybody who actually bookmarked or frequented this site is able to find their way back to it.  I never check the analytics on my various endeavors, so for all I know nobody has ever viewed this site, save for the one fella who actually left a comment.  Hence the aforementioned need to engage in promotion, primarily so that I can rattle off large numbers to impress other people.  That’s all I got.  Later.

A Yelp Review of Yelp

I meant to write this corny article ages ago, but was only reminded of my procrastination recently with the announcement of “Peeple”, the latest retarded, yet unnecessary app in the increasingly overcrowded market of retarded, unnecessary apps.  Peeple is an app that lets you rate other people.  It’s one of those lowest common denominator sites that takes an idea that was already successful and simplifies it, or merely applies that established idea to some other topic.  Kind of like how Twitter is just a half-ass blog site for people who can only write single sentences, or how Vine is Youtube for D+ students.

My original idea was to review individual people who write reviews on Yelp, because Yelp is essentially the Walmart of the internet.  The site tends to attract a few discrete types of people.  You have the trendy hipster types who want to wax poetic about that great bar or that overpriced vegan restaurant down the street.  (“It’s sooo good.  I can’t even…”)  Then you have the entitled narcissists, who jump at the chance to bitch and moan about every instance in which they aren’t catered to hand over foot.  (“Oh my gawd.  I had to wait like 5 minutes.  One star!”)  Rarely do reviews on Yelp fall into the neutral middle ground in the same manner they do on some of the major online retailer’s product reviews.  Most are poorly written however, so at least there’s some sort of consistency going on.

The reviews aren’t written merely to inform, but rather to garner some sort of reaction for the person writing the review, as if they are the main attraction and not the establishment in question.  There is an overwhelming social media slant to Yelp, with the site even having a focus on “friend-collecting” like on facebook or myspace.  How does writing a few reviews about restaurants necessitate the adding of other people on the site as friends?  What purpose does this even serve?  One of the draws of social media is that accomplished feeling you get based on how high of a friends list count you reach.  Do you actually hang out with, or even know any of these other people who write half-assed reviews on Yelp, or is the friends list essentially just a “high score” of sorts that you try to increase for some non-existent reward.

Yelp also has a completely unnecessary rating system for their reviews.  Their reviews have three buttons, one of which is a “useful” button, which is ironically, the only useful one.  It’s the time-tested qualifier for whether or not a review sticks to the topic and relays pertinent information, which many other sites have used for years.  Yelp also adds two completely pointless buttons into the mix as well.  There is a “funny” button and a “cool” button, neither or which convey any sort of practical information to the person using the site.  Reviews that contain no humor whatsoever will have still end up with a count beside the funny button, and people will still click on the cool button even though it serves absolutely no purpose.  These buttons are essentially an evaluation of the person posting, and have nothing to do with what is being reviewed.  Reading some of these pointless reviews, I can’t help but wish there was a “useless” button.  The site in general is a bit of an unrefined shit show.

I’m getting tired of writing about something as uninteresting as Yelp, so let’s wrap this equally uninteresting post up and get to the point.  Here is my Yelp-style Yelp review of Yelp:

 

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MeatGoblet wrote a review for Yelp                                           One minute ago

★★★★★ 11/8/2015

Hay guys! it’s ya boy Meat Goblet here. Man.let me tell you. all my friends where talkin’ about this site called Yelp online and I figured I’d check it out. Hey man. Its pretty good. So its like this social media site like myspace or somethin that you can also rate stuff on. they got a place you can put all you’re freshest pics up so that other people will think you’re hot or whatevr else. Maybe you can meet like a girl friend or boyfreind of whatever else. they also got neat-o buttons n shit that you can push all on to let peepz know that that there writings are funny and cool or whatever else. Then they got personal info stats on the side so that people can get to no you better. they got THings liek “things I love” & “my first concert”. They got other important stuff to like ‘cUrrent crush”.  U know, all the things people need 2 know about you on a review sight.  its pretty good. I definatly like it beter than myspace bacuse you can add all your friends and pictures but U can also make reviews 2 and thats good becuase its another creative outlit and gets U better at writting. So add me as you’re friend on there and dont forget to click the funy and cool buttons cause my review was definatley cool and funny.  Later!

Was this review…?
useful 1  funny 11  cool 9

Safe Spaces Are For Babies

There is a bit of a trend going around as of late, wherein people who are legally adults, but emotionally still children, feel that they are entitled to be protected from any type of speech or ideology that isn’t in line with their own belief systems.  This only happens in a few places.  Fiction stories, that cesspool of rampant idiocy known as Twitter™, and those establishments of higher (ever more debatable by the day) learning known as colleges.  Regardless of where it happens though, it’s generally a sad state of affairs, and needs to cease being catered to by those who are rational enough to know better.  Seriously.  Cut that shit out.

There are examples of this rampant college infantilism all over the news these days.  From Condoleezza Rice being boycotted at Rutgers University over opposition to her involvement in the Iraq war, to Bill Maher being boycotted at U.C. Berkeley over speaking ill of radical Islamic ideology.  A generation is being raised to see nothing wrong with living in an echo chamber, surrounding themselves with clones who think and act exactly as they do, all the while considering anyone with differing ideas to be an opponent in need of silencing.  The second anyone with a differing view comes within range, they instinctively grab the torches and pitchforks and assemble the lynch mob.

The fact of the matter is, the ones who seem to be in need of “safe spaces”, are largely middle class, liberal, white kids.  The very demographic who tends to grow up the most privileged, and seemingly the most sheltered.  The demographic who increasingly live with their parents way later than anybody labelled an adult should, a good deal of whom haven’t even had a legitimate job prior to graduating college.  Given these factors, it seems completely logical that this demographic would be ill-equipped to deal with the adult world, and the conflict of thoughts and ideas that tend to exist within it.

Safe spaces do in fact exist out there.  They are called cribs, and they are for babies.  There will always be somebody to wait on you hand and foot in these “safe spaces”, and you never need to worry about any kind of challenge or adversity.  When something is foreign or scary to you, mommy and daddy will always be right around the corner to make everything better and kiss your boo-boos.  You know what isn’t a “safe space”?  The world as a whole.  The world is a difficult and challenging place, oftentimes requiring you to engage in situations that are new and stressful to you initially.  You grow as a human by meeting challenges head-on and allowing different ideas and views-points to permeate your cranium parts.  Spending the rest of your life hiding under the bed merely ensures that you will never truly progress, and will forever remain an underdeveloped person.

Seriously though.  There are multiple colleges out there that allow “comfort” pets.  In case you aren’t in the know, comfort pets are for highly sheltered kids who can’t deal with the stress of being away from the comforting bosom of mom and dad.  What’s next?  Are these kids going to be able to have their mothers show up to classes with them soon?  Maybe even bring them a sandwich with the crusts cut off, or perhaps even a nice plate of Bagel Bites™.  How about they start wearing their favorite Pokemon feety pajamas and bringing a sippy cup full of Hi-C Ecto Cooler to Calculus class.

Sit down and lemme tell you a story, children.  I remember starting college back in the day and being depressed because I was off in some new environment, living in a claustrophobic, grey, cinder block dormitory.  I didn’t know anybody yet, including my roommate, who hadn’t shown up, and I wondered how college was possibly going to be enjoyable.  I missed the comfort of my former life and was already bummed about how my college experience was turning out.  But sure enough, I made friends, started hitting up parties, and gradually adjusted to campus life.  Would a kitty cat have made this transition easier?  Perhaps.  But it probably would have died, because college kids generally aren’t that responsible, and their parents aren’t going to be around to take care of that cat.

Colleges used to be considered beacons of progressive intellectualism, but nowadays seem to be bastions of regressive group think, which need to be protected at any cost from outside influence.  Many of these campuses have so many rules limiting speech and expression that they make North Korea seem a little less oppressive in comparison.  A group of students at Wesleyan University in Connecticut even tried to have the campus paper defunded until a series of demands were met, much in the manner of a hostage situation.  That doesn’t sound very progressive at all, does it?  One might say it sounds a bit fascist.  The boycotting of opposing ideas is generally the response of the weak minded, who fear engaging in critical thought or having their preconceived notions challenged.

So if you’re reading this, and you’ve been acting out in the manner of one of these Junior Fascists, cut it out.  Free speech means free speech for everyone, not just your entitled little ass.  Great minds are open to new ideas, and are always willing to hear both sides of an argument.  If everybody engaged in group think, and nobody ever went against the grain or questioned the status quo, we’d all be goose stepping and loading people who are “different” onto boxcars headed to terrible destinations.  Human tragedy will always be borne out of falling in line and trying to rid the world of diversity.  So be part of the solution and not part of the problem.  Thank you class of ’15 and have a kool summer.