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The Brands™ Are At It Again

Boy I sure do love brands. They’re so quirky and relatable. They’re just like us people!

Take McDonald’s™ for example:

f! F! FFFFFFfffFFFff!!! OMG F!

I definitely relate to this tweet, McDonald’s™! I dropped a french fry while I was stuffing my face in the car once. LOL! I’m gonna like this tweet along with the other 10k obviously well adjusted, definitely not lonely, sad people following a fast food company on social media and liking all their posts like their quirky aunt posted them.

McDonald’s™ is practically my best friend at this point. I’m even thinking about asking McDonald’s™ to be the best man at my wedding. I hope McDonald’s™ says yes.

4.3 million people follow the McDonald’s account. All these brand accounts are followed by millions of people. Who are the people following these brand accounts? Who desperately needs to hear what Arby’s has to say about social issues?

This is probably the most Idiocratic (like the movie) thing about our society currently. Billion dollar companies using social media to seem relatable, and endear themselves to their consumers, who are nothing more than a source of revenue to them. It’s so creepy and depressing that it works so well.

I wrote about how insufferable the concept of “relatable brands” is in my January 11, 2021 post: right here.

I think the worst part is that there seems to be a mighty large overlap between the people who proclaim “Corporations are not people!”, and those that follow and like corporate accounts because they make cute quips or send out virtue signalling tweets about social issues. (see Ben & Jerry’s). Pick a lane champ. Are corporations evil, or are they excluded from that once they mirror your goofy-ass political opinions or make a few funny meme jokes?

The other day Facebook™ went down for some reason, most likely due to incompetence, and the other brands jumped on that fact to increase their P.R. scores amongst the meatbags on social media.

Get it? Because Facebook™ was down, but Twitter™ was still up. This is obviously because Twitter™ is a competently run company, and nothing bad would ever happen to them. Except this thing that happened last year of course:

Your website got hacked by a 17-year-old kid, guys. Maybe stop gloating, seeing as how your hack actually did damage and included theft.

But anyways, the tweet was popular, because there’s this creepy political divide between Facebook™ and Twitter™, wherein one is considered the “liberal” platform, and one the “conservative” platform. This is of course idiotic, because you’re responsible for who you follow and what shows up on your feed on both platforms. If your feed is garbage on either, this is a “you” problem. The garbage is looking back at you in the mirror, my friend. Consequently, both platforms poorly enforce their Terms of Service, and both platforms poorly filter out propaganda. I cover this in my previous posted linked above. Yet takes like this persist:

A bunch of folks (the impressionable ones at least) want to delete Facebook™ and Instagram™ now because a “whistleblower” who used to work at Facebook decided she needed to get famous and start making some real big league money (allegedly).

There’s already numerous things about this scenario that smell fishier than a wet market, but I’ll avoid going too much into it because it’s still too early to blow the whistle on this dubious story just yet. She does have connections to Democratic politicians (who are generally anti-Facebook) and is being propped up by twitter (Facebook’s competitor) already, which is suspect to say the least.

I do find it funny she’s being called a “whistleblower”, just like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning. The difference of course being that those three put themselves at risk to challenge the government’s power, while Haugen is fighting for the government to have even more power in regulating what citizens can say or post. If she ends up in a cushy political position within five years time, I will be exactly 0% surprised. But let’s all clap and cheer and pretend Facebook™ is the biggest threat to “weaken our Democracy” as Haugen puts it, and not government mandated censorship.

The thing that made me roll my eyes the hardest at all this, is that Facebook™ isn’t the only problem here, but Instagram™ is too. Yes, the website where people post endless selfies of themselves and food pictures is also a threat worthy of a government hearing. Thank you for speaking up about the harmful pictures, brave “whistleblower”. Hopefully you don’t get waterboarded for speaking this truth to power.

It’s led to this kind of nonsense reporting:

This kind of reporting even led to a #DeleteInstagram hashtag trending on Twitter™.

Yes everybody, delete your Instagram accounts because a “whistleblower” claims the platform harms teenage girl’s self-image. Lets also burn our rock n’ roll LPs because they’re corrupting the youth and turning them onto the ways of the devil. Sweet sweet moral panic. Good to see nothing ever really changes as the decades roll by. Definitely don’t take active participation in the lives of your children, or anything like that. Let’s try to use the government to ban or shut things down like rational non-authoritarians.

We’re doing it guys! We’re creating further protections for elected officials and celebrities! Keep going! Maybe soon we can start jailing or executing people who speak ill of the King. We’ll be back in the 1700’s before we know it, and all because moral panic is an effective tool to convince dumb people to give up their rights and give more power and protections to the wealthy and elite. Yay!

That’s it little meatbags… get angry at the technology. Get angry at the scary technology that you can use as a proxy for all of society’s problems. Burn the effigy! It’s definitely Instagram’s fault that we live in an empty, narcissistic society full of people who feel the need to post 7000 selfies a day on social media for attention. That problem will definitely go away if Instagram doesn’t exists. These people won’t just continue seeking validation on some other platform.

Like this for example:

Yes, she’s finally free after deleting Instagram™, yet her entire Twitter™ feed is endless pictures of herself. Good thing she deleted evil Instagram™, and broke the cycle of constantly posting pictures for other’s validation on the internet. See how Instagram™ is quite obviously not the problem in this scenario? It’s like complaining that Pepsi™ is full of sugar, and bad for you, then switching over to Coke™ and patting yourself on the back for making a positive change.

So now that I’ve gone completely off into the weeds, I’ll get back on the track I started this post about, which was the brands reacting to the Twitter™ post above. Get ready to witness pure, unadulterated visual cringe.

Here are multiple Amazon™ brands just naturally responding to another brand, as brands tend to do. Brands, they’re just like us. Good to see people could take time off from pearl clutching about how evil Amazon™ is to give free promotion to their creepy digital assistant who eavesdrops on your conversations and snitches to the government:

You goofballs are irate over drivers peeing in bottles, but this is a non-issue? We truly have our priorities in order here.

Here we have two of my favorite fast food restaurants advertising under the Twitter™ tweet. I like Burger King™ fries, but Cambridge University™ definitely has the better milkshakes.

Hey guys, are you bored? What with Facebook™ being down and all. Well you’re in luck because instead of going outside and getting some fresh air, you can order a pizza from Domino’s™ (only the UK one) or download some shitty mobile games off Google™ to pass the time. Hell, why not just do both.

This is where it gets a little weirder. Metallica is just yelling like a little kid hopped up on Mountain Dew Baja Blast™ , but what’s that on the left? Did anyone else not know that KFC Gaming™ was an actual entity? Evidently it’s not a parody account and KFC actually has a console in development:

What, I say what in tarnation? A console that warms my KFC™ brand official gamer chicken? Hell yeah, brother. A little chicken grease dripping in my gaming console can’t possible create any issues. Hell, make the console liquid chicken-grease cooled.

Sportsball™ chimed in with a generic “how bout that game” response, because what else would they have to add to this discussion. Meanwhile, Pizza Hut™ completely missed the point of the original post and replied like the topic was Garfield comics.

Twitter™ : “Hey guys, our site is still up and running, while our competitor is having technical issues.”
Pizza Hut™ : “I’m gonna eat your lasagna and sit on your newspaper while you’re reading it 😂”.
Very cool Pizza Hut™ . Thanks for that.

The bean water companies weren’t going to be left out. Starbucks™ decided to just shill their overpriced caffeine juice, while Tim Hortons™ went completely off-topic, because evidently they’ve been hanging out with Pizza Hut™ a little too much.

Next up, we have Uno™, who have a Twitter™ account for some reason. I haven’t even heard of anybody playing Uno™ since like 1993. What other obscure games have Twitter™ accounts? Is Yahtzee™ on that site? How about Parcheesi™? Does Mouse Trap™ have an account so I can keep up-to-date with all the latest important Mouse Trap™ developments? Then Warner Bros™ chimes in with the most half-assed response imaginable.

Lastly, we have Zoom™ . They make a clever screen joke, because what else are they really gonna add to this discussion? It’s just Zoom™.

That’s all the brand responses I saved, even though there were dozens more. No brand would be caught dead missing the opportunity to advertise their shit below a viral tweet that got 3 million likes. People proceeded to “like” these blatant advertisements by the tens of thousands because people are suckers for being advertised to in a relatable way it seems.

All these accounts exist merely to advertise on Twitter™. That is their only purpose. They hit you with the ads on television, they hit you with the ads in magazines, they even hit you with the ads on YouTube™ and Twitch™. You’re crazy if you think they’re gonna miss out on the opportunity to advertise to you on Twitter™ as well. Yet people like this kind of thing instead of simply ignoring it, like they probably should.

I can’t wait for the future of advertising, wherein you’ll arrive back at your place after work, and McDonald’s™ welcomes you home right before telling you about the new McLobster Milkshake. This won’t phase you of course, because ads are everywhere. They’re everywhere because you insisted on inviting the brands into your home at every opportunity. You even rewarded the brands by “liking” all of their horseshit. This dystopia is your doing, so enjoy it.

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Facebook Betas Are Ruining America

Traditionally, the term beta is used to refer to a male who tries to get in a woman’s good graces by doing as little work as necessary.  This usually entails doing things like throwing out compliments or being overly agreeable or helpful towards a woman, merely for the sake of trying to win said woman’s affections, rather than doing those very things simply to be sociable and friendly.  These beta types are often stereotyped as wearing fedora hats and uttering things such as “You first m’lady” and “You wanna come over and play D&D this Saturday?  Maybe afterwards we can watch Dragon Ball Z together if that’s cool with you”.

Facebook betas are people who “like” everything posted by someone whose good graces they’re trying to get in to, whether they actually find the post to be interesting or humorous in the least.  They engage in this constant “like” button mashing because they are hoping to endear themselves to the person in question without actually having to put in the work that would be necessary in a traditional pre-social-network relationship.  Validating somebody’s “posts” in real life would require more than flashing them a thumbs-up.  One would actually need to give some sort of reasoning as to why they though somebody’s shitty instagram picture of absolutely nothing was a great idea to share with everybody, which would no doubt require some degree of lying.

You’ll see this happen a lot when somebody in a social circle has some slight level of fame, success, or is a woman whom the beta male finds appealing.  If someone on facebook constantly posts trite, uninteresting content, yet continues to have a flurry of likes for every uninspired post they make, they clearly have amassed a small army of beta-types vying for their attention.  The individuals who receive all this validation for doing something as banal as taking an overly filtered picture of themselves (if not hundreds), or posting some half-baked, poorly written social commentary, are never ones to reciprocate with the excessive thumbs-upping themselves.  These aren’t relationships of equality, but alpha-beta relationships, borne of one parties constant need for attention and the others need for acceptance.

The problem with these facebook betas, is that their constant positive reinforcement of other people’s narcissistic, feeble posts, establishes an unwarranted sense of accomplishment in the recipient.  The attention-seeking poster is rewarded for constantly engaging in empty, egotistical ventures, and is never held to any kind of standard, insofar as improving their ability to tell a story, formulate an idea, or post a photo that isn’t inherently drenched in vanity.  It’s the social media equivalent of the rise of individuals like Paris Hilton, or Kim Kardashian, who obtained celebrity and fame, all without having any discernible talent.  Mrs Hilton and Kardashian are the alphas in this case, and all those commoners who hold them in high esteem for no good reason are the betas.

This constant beta-fluffing isn’t likely to result in the attention-recipient ever accomplishing anything, or achieving any real degree of success in life however.  The recipient of all these empty compliments develops a skewed sense of reality, wherein they are more interesting, talented, or attractive than they actually are.  These delusions of grandeur bypass the natural order of improvement, which occurs through a series of successes and failures.  If every single thing somebody produces, regardless of quality or significance is praised, that individual never develops a sense of what actually has quality or significance.  Essentially, they are turning in D+ work all their lives, yet constantly receiving “A“s for the minimal degree of effort that is actually invested.

A good example would be the “worst of” contestants on American Idol, or other glorified talent shows.  These contestants apply to these programs, then show up to sing in front of large groups of people, all the while legitimately believing themselves to be accomplished singers.  After they inevitably crash and fail in a cringe-inducing fashion, they always seem to be genuinely confused as to how the judges weren’t absolutely floored by their performances.  As it usually turns out, they had friends who constantly buttered them up with praise and adoration for their horrendous performance skills, so they started to develop delusions of possessing some sort of talent or skill, which they never actually had.  They were never told that they were terrible at singing, so they never felt the need to actually improve, or to find something they were actually good at.

Ultimately, it’s better to have legitimate criticism or praise for the content you put out into the world, rather than receive fake approval or a complete lack of feedback.  A complete lack of feedback is actually better than fake approval, since it tends to drive the ambitious person to continue honing their skills until they finally get the results they are looking for.  People seem to have issues being perfectly honest with others on social media however.  Nobody wants to tell that person who posts 12 pictures of themselves on a daily basis to maybe tone it down a little, because it comes across as desperate and needy, so the empty thumbs up continue to pour in, and the narcissism grows.  You can’t really blame the one inundating social media with self-centered postings however, as social media enables this behavior.  In the physical world, anyone who talks about themselves all the time, or constantly tries to turn the focus of a conversation onto themselves tends to be ignored or disliked, while on social media, this behavior is positively reinforced via some sort of point system.

The way to fix this, is quite obviously to have social media where thumbs-ups are replaced with thumbs-downs.  That way, these beta’s ability to positively reinforce terrible content and narcissistic behavior is greatly limited.  Either the shitty post gets no feedback, or the beta has to actually formulate some sort of thought-out response to leave as a comment.  If you “like” that stupid out-of-focus instagram picture of somebody’s terrible looking food, you’re going to need to actually explain why, since taking the easy way out via a thumb’s up is no longer an option.  Obviously, nobody will ever be truly honest and click a thumbs-down on shitty content though.  That would be far too honest.