The Meme Generation

Daddy’s Burger

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:50:57 -0500

Daddy’s Burger

Daddy Burger

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:12:49 -0500

Daddy Burger

Ramones - Slug Love love LOVE this song. Another from the...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:49:00 -0500

Ramones - Slug

Love love LOVE this song. Another from the “happy catchy tune that’s a little sad if you pick up on the lyrics” genre (like this).

This is also for @sloganeerist, because I want to show him that I can post songs that aren’t 10 minutes long.

Erica? I think you can safely check Stan off of that list.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:41:45 -0500

Erica? I think you can safely check Stan off of that list.

Addendum

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:46:57 -0500

indefensible:

In essence, I think it’s important to do something instead of (or as well as) looking like you’re doing something. It doesn’t have to be entirely selfless, and it doesn’t have to be inconvenient. The main ‘charitable’ thing I do takes me about 16-20 hours per month, most of it at times that suit me. And I enjoy doing it.

If you’ve been reading my blather for a while, you might remember that what I do is sit on the human research ethics committee of a public (not for profit) hospital. These committees are interesting, they review important work, and to function at all, they need a range of views from non-medical members of the community.

Yet they find it very difficult indeed to find people who will commit the time to read the research proposals and give their comments. Most of the time, the review process is an absolute drudge, but it’s necessary. Without laypeople on these committees, patients on drug and device trials would be at the whim of clinicians and researchers who don’t always have the wishes of individual patients in mind.

Why am I telling you this? Mostly to tell you that getting involved doesn’t have to be about the big sexy causes. It doesn’t have to be about doing something that shows people you’re a good person. But I guarantee there’s something going on in your community that would be better off if you somehow got involved.

I’m not saying gestures don’t matter. But don’t let them be the limit of your involvement in things that are bigger than yourself.

Now that’s the stuff.

Better

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:05:28 -0500

merlin:

So, yes. I am cutting way back on trips to the steam table of half-finished, half-useful, half-ideas that I both make and consume. And, with respect, I encourage you to consider doing the same; especially if that all-you-can-eat buffet of snark and streaming produces (or encourages) anything short of your “A” game.

Huh. Look at that.

On 'Conspicuous Compassion.'

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:03:04 -0500

misseffieb:

merlin:

indefensible:

Conspicuous Compassion

… I have bought this book and given it to people who work in the charitable sector more times than I can remember.

Here’s a sample first chapter [PDF] from Conspicuous Compassion. Looks backordered on AMZN right now, but I will absolutely be buying and reading this very soon.

I quote the sample at length because, as I walked down the street yesterday, reading this on my phone, I literally yelled, “YES!” at least three times.

Quote:

Read More

In (qualified) defense of “Conspicuous Compassion”:

Yes. People need to stop bitching and do something. This includes the people who are bitching about people bitching and not doing anything. And good of those critics to note that raising awareness does matter. But it’s not crass self-satisfaction and naive first world citizenship that leads people to wear ribbons and participate in Twitter hashtag memes.

Small gestures of solidarity and awareness-raising, aside from making a statement if done in large numbers, help the individuals who participate in these things feel more connected to a cause. Yes, adding a hashtag to your tweet about AIDS only makes you feel good right at that moment, and people are dying. But: it is your way of reaffirming, publicly and thereby to yourself, that you give a shit, in whatever small way, about AIDS. Maybe people who participate in a hashtag meme are more likely to, since they are now personally invested (or so they feel), pay attention to news about AIDS when they see it in their RSS feeds. Maybe someone who wears a ribbon will feel a tiny sense of accountability for the wearing of that ribbon, and make a small effort to educate him or herself about whatever cause they’re advocating, even if it’s just reading the Wikipedia page. It doesn’t fucking matter how they are involved with the cause, the point is that tiny, insignificant, self-serving things can lead to a society which is more educated about the things we need to be educated about.

And yeah, it’s good to challenge people to think more about the world, and to do more since they have the resources. But many of the people who participate in Twitter hashtags or wear ribbons, if not presented with those outlets, aren’t likely to do anything at all. So they do something that doesn’t help anyone in the immediate or in the large-scale. A thing that could lead to future compassion and curiosity regarding “their” cause. And which, if replicated on a large scale, could bring about a shift in culture. That’s not getting treatment to an orphan, but it sure as fuck is better than the nothing that would have happened otherwise.

[This, incidentally, is the same beef I have with people who criticize Product(RED) (who, full disclosure, I have indirectly worked with in the past). Folks who enjoy gettin’ all sanctimonious and saying “why don’t people just give money directly? Like your 15 cents from your latte is going to help a kid not-die!” are missing a huge, huge truth: very few of the people who make a point to, say, purchase a Product(RED) iPod would have otherwise gone out of their way to donate money to AIDS research. Same with the ubiquity of Breast Cancer stuff. It’s just the way people work: most of us, sad to say, won’t go out of our way to help, but if an opportunity to help is placed in front of us, we’ll gladly participate.]

So go fucking buy some sneakers, or participate in a hashtag meme. Maybe it’ll help in an intangible, future way. If that’s cold comfort to you, do something larger. It all has the potential to be helpful to the cause. Really, the only thing that would be unhelpful would be griping about how others’ gestures are not as meaningful as you’d like them to be.

[EDIT: For disclosure’s sake, I worked in an AIDS-related nonprofit before I got laid off. And as my way of stopping-bitching-and-doing-something, I’m still looking for a job in the nonprofit field. So obviously, I have an interest in things like this being important.]

[Sorry, I can’t find one bit of this I want to cut out.]

Well said.

In Boston, the entire summer is filled with walks for this or that throughout the city. They clog up traffic and public areas. But if the Walk for Hunger didn’t have 44,000 people walking 20 miles to help raise $3.8 million, I might not think about the issue at all.

October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the NFL had all of their stadiums and refs and players where pink somewhere. Silly? Maybe. But I guarantee you that something clicked for some guy somewhere and he said to his wife, “Hey, honey, these big burly football players care about your tits almost as much as I do. Are you supposed to get one of them squeezy gramamama things?”

Neither the walking nor the pink referee stripes did a damn thing. But it gets people involved and thinking, even if only in a small way.

People are inherently unaware (happily so) and lazy. Whether it’s a Twitter hash tag or @Mike_FTW telling us to give to Small Can Be Big, that’s awareness. For the laziness, Twitter pointed to some AIDS resources and @Mike_FTW gives us a URL with a Big Button to give some cash. In this reactive, distracted world, if you make it easy to do something then people will pretty much do it without thinking about it (click here to Digg this). Sure, they were getting that latte anyway, so instead of looking at it as Joe Shmoe tossing in tiny nickel, look at it more as a show of support for Starbucks giving 5% of their latte revenue of the day.

Packaging donations into something people were already going to purchase might be somewhat of an empty gesture, but it gets money that would otherwise have gone into someone’s pocket into the hands of someone who could use it for good. It’s a baby step towards people feeling some kinship with others about the cause at hand. And if corporations want to facilitate this for marketing or tax-writeoff purposes, so be it. The end result is publicity for something that some people haven’t heard of or had long forgotten about.

This is one of the concepts behind my company’s site, OneCause.com. You’re going to buy that stuff anyway. Do it through our site and an org of your choice (be it AIDS related, animal related, or, my org of choice, the Animal Rescue League of Boston) gets a cut. We’re the only site like this (UPromise included) that has Amazon.com as a merchant. Buying holiday gifts? Do it through here. You’ve “done” very little, like walking or wearing a pink ribbon, but you’ve still helped someone out.

I have yet to see a successful call for volunteers or donations that starts off with “Hey, you dumb, lazy fuckface, get the fuck off the couch and stuff some envelopes. Also, I hate you.” They’re normally more along the lines of “Would you mind stuffing these envelopes? Look, I’ve laid out everything you need right here to make it as easy as possible. This would really help us and some local homeless families.”

Until someone can prove to me that everyone who used a hash tag the other day didn’t do something else, then snarky calls to get off their asses and do something are wasting as much time as they claim the original hash tagged tweet did. Going to a public forum to seek out what other people are saying just to publicly declare that you don’t like what they’re saying is an even bigger waste.

But thank you for contributing to the awareness of the issue. In your own special way.

Adam, look out! He's a robot!

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:37:01 -0500

With metal claws! And when he grabs you with those metal claws, you can’t break free. Because they’re made of metal, and robots are strong.

bananacasts: This. Forgot to reblog this one from way back. Evan...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:49:18 -0500

bananacasts:

This.

Forgot to reblog this one from way back.

Evan made it out alive, but he was never the same.

via @beep EDIT: Dammit! This doesn’t animate in the...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:38:00 -0500

via @beep

EDIT: Dammit! This doesn’t animate in the dashboard. Click through to see it.

"But State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx made an impassioned argument against same-sex..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:49:27 -0500

“But State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx made an impassioned argument against same-sex marriage, describing his continued opposition as reflecting the broad consensus that marriage should be limited to a union between a man and woman. “Not only the evangelicals, not only the Jews, not only the Muslims, not only the Catholics, but also the people oppose it,” he said.”

- New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill - NYTimes.com

Did this backwards fuck just say that evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, and Catholics weren’t people?

"Both sides offered their first amendments Monday. Democrats wanted to create a baseline of..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:41:29 -0500

“Both sides offered their first amendments Monday. Democrats wanted to create a baseline of preventive services for all women receiving insurance. Republicans wanted to cut nearly half a trillion in cuts to future Medicare costs that Democrats envision as paying for the bill. The Republican proposal would effectively kill the health reform bill by stripping one of its major funding sources.”

- Ho, Ho, Ho, Health Reform? - George’s Bottom Line

“Ok, we’ll let your quote—health rights for women—endquote piece in, and we’ll even sweeten the deal with our own proposal. One that’ll make sure none of this will ever happen. Don’t answer now! Just think it over. Call me.”

The smallest things choke me up.

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:02:14 -0500

Boy: Daddy, can you get my backpack f'me?
Me: You're a big boy, you can get it.
Boy: I not a big boy! I a wittle boy.
Me (to myself): I know.

Is there a simple way to convert mp4's to mp3's?

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:00:25 -0500

insooutso:

Anyone? Bueller?

Remove one mp.

@riebschlager has answered the call. Will you? Include #red in...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:06:54 -0500

@riebschlager has answered the call. Will you? Include #red in your tweets today to help us end R.E.D.

Twitter Billboard Leads to Epic Fail

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:48:23 -0500

Twitter Billboard Leads to Epic Fail

Gobble, gobble!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:51:26 -0500

Gobble, gobble!

Is there an alternate spelling I’m not familiar with?

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:13:51 -0500

Is there an alternate spelling I’m not familiar with?

As Thanksgiving weekend comes to a close, what else am I...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:32:00 -0500

As Thanksgiving weekend comes to a close, what else am I thankful for?

A 2:1 ratio.

Time to cut the thermal vent!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:49:24 -0500

Time to cut the thermal vent!