I have no problem with Rich Kids of Instagram

Rich Kids of Instagram. I found out about this Tumblr on my Facebook newsfeed the other day, posted by one person who didn’t have anything to say about it, and another who commented with “Class warfare.. it’s real.”

Barf.

So what’s the media saying about the Rich Kids of Instagram?

I think there was a shortage of fear-mongering social media news stories this week, so TODAY Moms had to spin this Tumblr blog into a public service announcement for “keeping kids safe on the Internet.” Just to add to the stack of 5,345,320,220 other articles that have been written about it since the dawn of AOL under 13 chat rooms.

The Atlantic nailed it by saying that we’re ALL narcissistic assholes on social media, so please, stop pointing fingers at the trust fund kids. They just want to have fun. And post high exposure pictures about it.

CNN quoted this guy as being representative of “disgust and anger”:

Pretty sad how those Rich Kids of Instagram will never know the value of a hard days OH MY GOD I HATE THEM SO MUCH

— Josh Hara (@yoyoha) August 17, 2012

when I actually see it as a socially acceptable statement interrupted by an abrupt admission of envy. A+ for honesty!

People, people. We all saw the movie Blank Check in the 90s. Or at least I’m going to assume you did.

This was a movie about an 11 year-old kid who got a blank check in the mail from his senile grandma, told his parents, and they told him to write in $5 or something lame like that. …..Parents. Shortly after, the kid somehow comes upon another blank check and this time around has learned that factoring parents into the equation = no fun. So he fills in “$1,000,000,” takes it to the bank, and cashes it. Then he buys a mansion and fills it up with 1,000 gigantic inflatable pool toys and race cars and such. He swims in cash; that’s all I remember about the movie, other than that he probably got caught in the end and gave back all the money.

And you LOVED that movie as a kid, didn’t you? Don’t deny it.

When that skinny 11 year old kid told his butler to get him another chocolate milk from the seat of his Star Trek inflatable captain’s chair in his in-ground pool, you were dying inside. Because you knew you’d be going to sleep tonight in your ordinary middle-class bunk bed and not a gold-plated race car. You hated your parents for not having offshore accounts and make up for their 80-hour workweeks by buying you tons of awesome shit.

You might hate to admit it, but you haven’t changed much since then. Sure, you might be “the 99%”, Democrat-registered, and owner of a minivan in a small suburb south of the city, but let’s get serious. If a couple million dollars suddenly appeared on your doorstep, you’d have no problem Tweeting about it. Same reason you expect a bonus each year in your paycheck, along with a raise. Everyone’s pursuing their own American Dream, give or take a few zero’s. Just sayin.

How you, too, can be an Online Content Writer

A sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek look at the world of online content writing.

Yes, THIS MEANS YOU!

Do you have a computer? Are you capable of forming sentences? Congratulations, you are now steps away from being an Online Content Writer! If you like what you see on sensational websites like The Huffington Post, Fox News, CopyBlogger, and the Boston Herald, here’s how you, too, can become an online content writer JUST LIKE THEM!

Part I: How to make it look like you know what you’re talking about

Formatting is the key to making it look like you know what you’re talking about. The trick is to liberally use bullet points and bold, numbered lists, italics, and underline. Write anything in this paragraph. No one is going to read it, because it’s too long, and there are bullet points in bold below that are shorter and can be read quicker. If there is a particular topic in mind that you would like to highlight such as daisy dukes are back in fashion but this time for men, you can bold it, and the eye will probably travel straight to that phrase, so really, the only word that matters in this paragraph is that phrase, and maybe the last sentence of this paragraph. Daisy dukes are back in fashion because

• The weather is getting warmer
• Men’s shorts are just too longto keep them cool
• All of the celebrities are wearing them!

Youre MINUTES away from churning out pure gold like this

Part II: Copying and paraphrasing your content

Welcome to the second part of your article. This is your chance to truly shine as an online content writer. Prior to this moment, you had listed bullet points of your opinions. Here is the part where you support those opinions with rigorous, original research. Your job is to paraphrase that rigorous, original research, as seen below (and remember the golden rule of Online Content Writing — NEVER CREDIT THE SOURCE! Because you paraphrased it, the content is, naturally, YOUR MATERIAL.)

This summer, daisy dukes are the hottest trend on the Paris and Milan runways – but this time around, MEN are wearing them. Celebrities seen wearing these hot cutoffs include: Charlie Sheen, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, and even Will Ferrell! You can buy the newest daisy dukes at Express for Men, H&M, and Target. (Or you can fashion your very own pair of daisy dukes by cutting the pants off of a pair of faded jeans.) With the way this trend has caught fire in Hollywood, it’s safe to say that daisy dukes are here to stay.

Preschoolers: The little-known eHow audience

…Or maybe you just don’t know what to write. If that’s the case, simply think of what people want, or problems they need to solve.  Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do these things, or how to solve their problems; you can always copy the things other people have written and paraphrase it without giving credit. Remember: YOU ARE THE EXPERT! How to find content that you can copy and paraphrase:

1. Google
2. eHow
3. Wikipedia
4. News articles
5. Personal web pages written by actual experts
6. Blogs
7. Social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
8. Other ways!!!

Part III: Mastering the art of the title

You have now arrived at the single, most important part of being an online content writer (other than not crediting your sources, of course!). If it doesn’t have a good title, no one is going to read it. That means no one is going to click on the Adsense ads embedded in your page or fill out your affiliate form for Hotels Combined.

Fear, check. Size 700 font, check. Blood-like font color, check. Dramatic picture, check. SUCCESS!!

In their titles, the masters of online content use: fear, accusation, suspense, and the old standby of “10 ways to…” So you’re writing about The Adverse Effects of Watching Television in Juveniles. (This is actually the title of a Popular Science article — which you are paraphrasing.) By using the techniques I mentioned, here are some great ways to spin that crusty old title into something that PUNCHES YOUR AUDIENCE IN THE FACE:

• Fear: “Why Your Child Could Perish in 5 Years”
• Accusation: “How You’re Killing Your Children”
• Suspense: “The Household Object That is Slowly Murdering Each and Every One of your Children”
• 10 Ways: “10 Ways your Child Could Die in your Own Home”

By now, you should feel very comfortable with using bulletpoints and bold, copying content and paraphrasing it, and writing effective titles. Make sure to summarize your entire article here at the bottom to make it easy for people who do not have the time to read your entire article. You are now officially an online writing expert – set up a Twitter account, Facebook page, write your new professional title in your email signature and LinkedIn profile, and get ready to share that content!

Special thanks to the thousands of online content writers, bloggers, Moms Who Work from Home, Online Marketing Gurus and various Web Marketing Affiliates who were the inspiration for this article. Shout-0ut to The Content Farm, another source of mockery of online content.

10 Things No One Gave a Shit About in 2010

What with the BP disaster, Chilean miners, Wikileaks, the Craigslist Killer Lifetime Movie and everything else that was important in 2010 getting a second wind of exposure, I’ve decided to put out my own list of Top 10 in 2010. It’s time to shine a light on those things that had no influence over anyone in 2010.

10. Poor hamburger phone connectivity

I’m tired of all these wireless providers getting all the attention. I’m having a serious hamburger phone connectivity issue here! I can’t make outgoing calls, I can’t get incoming calls, and anytime I hear dialtone it sounds like an orca whale and a fire alarm are mating on the other end of the line. I do not appreciate prank calls, Hamburger Phone Network! If you had a Twitter account, I would not hesitate to Direct Message the shit out of your interns!

9. Rhett Akers’ basement videos

Rhett Akers is on the fast track to Internet Stardom with his Youtube videos, filmed in what appears to be the basement apartment of his parents’ house. And there’s more where that came from, ladies — follow @RhettAkers on Twitter for some more guitar/shirtless action! Red hot!

*If you’re insinuating that I found Rhett Candy by chance today, you are correct

8. Maatia Toafa is elected Prime Minister of Tuvalu

I know what you’re thinking. Tuvalu? Why didn’t this make headlines?!! Well, it’s likely that the news was slightly overshadowed by the record-setting billion-dollar campaign ad expenditures on the other side of the world.

7. Knitting with Dog Hair trend takes off

Meredith Biggelsworth and son

Largely spurred by the 1997 publication of Knitting with Dog Hair: Better a Sweater from a Dog You Know Than from a Sheep You’ll Never Meet, the knitting with dog hair trend reached a pivotal point in 2010, with one final influx of midwestern stay-at-home-moms to the Internet. It was a historical day for the cult phenomenon when on November 23, 2010, 7 total pictures were uploaded to Twitter since 1997.* Says Anne Montgomery, author of KWDH,

“Buster passed on January 12, 1994. It was a painful time for me, as it was right after the holidays and I was also going through a separation period from my now ex-husband. I looked around the house and the solution was right there in front of me. I gathered up Buster’s fur, picked up my knitting needles, and began working away. Now I can have Buster close to my heart whenever I need him.”

Montgomery is currently working on a guide to making jewelry out of hamster feces.

*Source: Twitter Trends

6. How many times I wore these socks

To estimate the number of times I wore these socks in 2010, I will multiply their level of softness by the approximate coldness of my apartment floor, divided by the number of pairs of other socks that I own, minus two days (days I have owned these equally warm slippers, thanks Mom), equals 17.6. I think it’s safe to say that they’ve paid for themselves!

5. It became okay to abort a twin

What would the world be like if selective reduction had been around for the first trimester of Zach and Cody?* I do not care to imagine such a dark place… I remember exactly where I was when I read the editorial about selective reduction in the back of Elle Magazine. I don’t even know why I began reading the story, I tend to ignore all text in that magazine because it’s usually nonsense written by girls who have cotton balls for brains. Anyway. It was a story about a woman that found out she was pregnant with twins, and was considering the option of aborting one of them. Spoiler alert: she goes for it. Now, I’m fairly open-minded and have a range of liberal views (if you get my gist), but I was shocked, disgusted, and frankly, scared when I reached the end of the story. Regardless of what a parent may say, one way or another, the kid is going to grow up and find out that they should have had a brother or sister. Cue emotional destruction, stage one. What’s weird is that selective reduction is nothing new, the procedure was developed in the 1980s, but it’s becoming more popular. I give it 10 years to further unfold into a Brave New World dystopian scenario.

*It was around, just not popular yet.

4. Spanky resurfaces

Remember the 90s Little Rascals movie, and that kid Spanky who was soooo cute? … That is all.

3. I slept with a bunny

2. MOBA acquires its newest piece

Hollywood Lips is about one woman’s inner battle between light and dark, partially owed to the fact that she resembles a palm tree and has weird, angry eyes. Kids can be cruel.

1. This roll of tape ran out

Plane Crashes Into IRS Office in Austin, Texas

Being that it is tax season and the aircraft was a small one-man plane, if you do not see the irony in this you need to be

SHOT

Apparently the guy had tax problems and thought that the best possible way to end his financial troubles was to set his house on fire and fly his airplane into a government building. Please note that I will be forced to abandon all prior commitments when the poster-boy of logic and reasoning, Mr. Joe Stack, appears as a guest on The Colbert Report. You can Become a Fan of Joe Stack here.

A Discreet Atheist’s Thoughts on Haiti

“Why does God do these things?”

(I don’t believe in God.) Last night, an 89 year-old woman at the nursing home my Mom works at asked her this question. My Mom, a part-time Catholic, responded with the usual shpiel — God made us, God made all things, whatever happens to us and whatever we do is beyond His control.

I am a covert atheist. I don’t wear devil horns to bed, I don’t roll my eyes when others talk about a higher power, and I consider the Bible a pretty good read. The reason I don’t advertise the fact that I don’t believe in God is because I feel that it limits the pool of people I can interact with. If you don’t believe me, you’ve never been to Catholic school.

Though I am not God-fearing, the disaster in Haiti has nonetheless stirred up some strong feelings on my part. I feel deep sorrow for those that lie in rubble waiting to be found. I can’t imagine how slow time passes when a family member or friend is missing. When I see news reports of people walking through the streets, I wonder what it would feel like to have no home to return to and no grasp on privacy or comfort for an untold amount of time.

Sitting on my couch in my bathrobe with a hot cup of coffee by my side, I feel guilty. When I Google “How to help Haiti,” all I see are links for donation websites. Years ago, I remember reading somewhere that the greatest aid to disaster relief is often in manpower, not in money. I wish there was something I could physically do to help. Last year, a friend of mine joined AmeriCorps, and I remember looking into it, then getting caught up in schoolwork and applications to internships. I’ve always felt that I shouldn’t be selfish about my youth — though I’m only 5’3″, I’m strong, smart, and diligent. I graduate college this May. Though it’s not much help for Haiti right now, I’m going to look into joining the Peace Corps.

My thoughts go out to the people suffering the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.

Is Etsy.com a Front for a Celebrity Clone Project?

Etsy.com has blown its cover. Once thought to be a retail space for handmade items, the public now has reason to believe that the website is an Internet-based government project focused on experimenting with the genes of once-famous celebrities.

Top authorities are now actively searching in the Beverly Hills area for a rumored ‘black market’ where local celebrities auction off their DNA for cold, hard cash. Authorities believe that unlicensed amateur scientists use the celebrities’ DNA to perform clone experiments, some of these clones ending up as models on Etsy.com.

The evidence below is what has recently been uncovered from Etsy.com.

Subject No. 1000328

Authorities have reason to believe Subject No. 1000328 has been derived from the DNA of

Corey Feldman.

Subject No. 1000746

Authorities have reason to believe that Subject No. 1000746  is an unfortunate result of the malicious DNA tampering of

Mickey Rooney

If you have any information on this crime, please contact Boston’s Fox News Tip Line at 1-888-411-TIPS.

Vicious Criminal on the Run

APRIL 8th, 2009 New Haven, CONNECTICUT Police have released this likeness of Stick Stickley, 21, who fled the scene after allegedly assaulting his pregnant 15 year-old girlfriend, whose name has been undisclosed for privacy.

Mr. Stickley was last seen at about 7:30 pm on Tuesday night. A witness to the crime, Chalky Studebaker, 28, described the violent scene that he watched from his front porch:

“There was yelling, she was crying, she covered her face, and he kicked her in the stomach, over, and over, and over… it was horrible. The worst part is, he was smiling the entire time. I’ll never erase that vicious grin from my mind…”

After performing a search at his former address, authorities have concluded that Mr. Stickley is in possession of his deceased father’s 9mm handgun.

Police are requesting that anyone with information on the whereabouts of Stick Stickley come forward.