Grace: It Would Never Have Perished if It Weren't for You Meddling Kids!

"Children: can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em! Can't you see that!?" 

Robin Williams (or whoever he stole the material from >.>)

Truer words were never spoken. Ever. :P

I have never been a fan of anyone between the ages of 7 and 13 with access to the internet. The demographic carries with it the misfortune of being represented, at least in part, by verbally impotent, intellectually deficient loudmouths with no sign of respect and no thought to spare. I'm well aware of the fact that kids need to learn that it's polite not to be a total douchebag when talking to someone -- that's just part of growing up -- but doesn't that shit happen when they're, like, 5? 6, maybe? I know I was taught that shit way before I got my hands on a keyboard and mouse, and I was roughly the same age when internet access first came in to our house. Of course, everyone outside of the demo is slightly to blame, with kids being exposed to this and being led to believe it's a totally appropriate way to talk to someone you just met; but sometimes, you just know the kid's a total dick, and I've had one of those incidents recently.

Keep in mind that I used to be a pretty hot-headed person, and would go off at the first sight of idiocy or ignorance, irrespective of the guilty party's age. I soon realised that this was a rather extreme way to act, and while I still cringe and curse when I see people asking dumbarse questions in YouTube comments or personal messages that Google could answer in a godforsaken millisecond, the cursing is only heard by the walls in my house -- now, I simply tell them to "look it up" without going apeshit. There was this one kid this week who sent me 4 or 5 PM's on YouTube asking "where do you get [sticker]", "where do you get the tool bag for create mode", "where do you get the clank level i have the game of the year edition and i cant find it". It's not the absence of spelling or grammar that gets me; it's the fact that research skills are seemingly lacking in today's young. I doubt it was this bad before computers -- I betcha anything that kids back then weren't this empty up top. They knew: wanna know what a word means? Dictionary. Wanna know other words for that word? Thesaurus. Wanna know the capital of the Dominican Republic? Atlas. Wanna speed this shit up and get with the times? Google. That, however, is pretty excusable; what I'm about to recite is not :P

Somebody sent me a friend request on the PSN: "I want to be your friend" or something to that effect was in the message. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, I get those from time to time, but I don't add anyone on the PSN. I don't really care if he knew or not, and there's nothing to be angry about, so I just tell him what I tell everyone else who sends me a friend request on the PSN:

"I don't add anyone on the PSN, sorry."

That is word for word what I send as a reply to anyone who sends me a friend request and is nice enough to write something in the message space (empty friend requests are just sad -- at this point, the kid is in my good books). His reply:

"i'm ur fan and you say this to me"

...yes, I do say this to him, and to everyone else who sends me a request. I don't owe him anything -- I have fun making videos and getting some attention, he gets free entertainment. It's a more-than-reasonable exchange. No need to bring that shit up with him though; I'll just explain my response:

"i say this to everyone who wants to add me -- i can't add everyone who asks, and i don't have the time to play with you, so there's no point in me adding you"

Seriously: there isn't. I'm on rarely as it is, and when I am online, I opt to play alone more often than not. His reply:

"then why did you add luisbravo1?"

Perfectly reasonable question, deserving of an answer:

"that was years ago back when I wasn't busy, and it was to make a video with him"

His reply:

"please add me Bludgaboy i want a friend that is cool. just plz add me i'm begging u :("

...a-a-a-and here's where it all starts going downhill :P  This implies that any existing friends this kid has are, in his eyes, not cool. How rude is that, man!? Kids say shit like this all the time, but wow! Gotta end this quickly:

"why should i add you and no one else that asks? that's not fair. please just accept the fact"

This is part of my reasoning behind my decision not to add anyone, regardless of who they are: one stranger gets rejected because there's no point in me adding them, so does everyone else. If I pick and choose which random friend requests to accept and reject, it'll just serve to piss the rejected ones off. This way, it's nothing personal.

He left me alone for about a week, then sent me this cavalcade of irritation:

"Plz add me Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz"

For those of you too lazy to count: 32 instances of the abbreviation collaborated on that project. What does copy/pasting "plz" go to show (they wouldn't all be capital P's if he didn't copy/paste... or at least tried to cover his tracks :P)? It's just silly, right?

"you can beg all you like, it's only making you look immature"

Harsh, but true. His reply:

"its not fair to be friends with venemo X luisbravo1 and everyone else"

1st: I am not friends with "everyone else" -- way to exaggerate :P

2nd: How is it not fair to be friends with Persons A and B, and not Person C? Maybe I don't like Person C! I am under no obligation to be friends with everyone who talks to me! If this is true, then one of two things is true: either I have to be friends with everyone, or have no friends at all!

3rd: Much like Luis, I added VenemoX a while back, and we knew each other on YouTube ever farther back. We were actual friends, so I added him (or him me, whatever :P). I've said this before, and I'll say it again: someone you know being in a "friends list" does not mean they are your friend. Also, I'm not friends with Luis; more of an acquaintance. We never speak to each other; how does that constitute friendship?

Kids think a "friend" is just someone they know, and I'm not gonna fuck with the kid's head for the sake of a label correction, so once again, I just tried to get this over with once and for all:

"i added those people *years* ago, before i stopped adding people. i have hardly any other people on the PSN i'm friends with. please, *please* stop this, or i'll just block you"

A-a-a-and now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

"f*** u"

WOAH WOAH WOAH Woah woah! F*** me? F*** me!? Hot diggity damn -- someone's gonna f*** me! Come on, people -- if you're gonna get down and dirty with the English language, at least have the balls to say the word rather than letting a bunch of asterisks do the work for ya :P

"calm down, grow up, and get over it, dude. i wouldn't want someone so rude and immature in my friends list even if i *did* add people"

Note how I'm yet to crack? No need to: he already has :P

"shut up u fuckin ass hole ADD ME!"

No "f*** me"? Is that girl still up for it? I know I am... *drools*. Anyways, enough perversion. Apart from the fact that "ass hole" is one word and not two, do you notice anything else wrong with this message? Anything at all? I sorta noticed something, might not actually be something, but, um... see how he called me a "fuckin ass hole"... then, right next to that, he demands that I add him? Do you get that? I don't.

I don't add people because I don't want to be obliged to add every single person who asks; I also don't add people so I can avoid future contact with anyone like this :P

EDIT:

"i dont want to be in your vids i just want to add u"

-and I just want this kid to get the message, but it would appear no-one's getting what they want. I don't think there's any hope with this kid. Just send his resume to Taco Bell and get him the fuck away from the PlayStation :P

EDIT 2:

More kids sending me friend requests? Yes, more kids sending me friend requests.

Some other kid kept asking me to be his friend and sent me a friend request every time I rejected the previous one. Eventually, he asked me to give him DLC; all became crystal clear from that point onwards :P  Go buy your own DLC, stingy prick.

I had another kid send me a friend request just saying "add me", which I responded to in the same way I always do. Logged on this morning to find another "please please please please please" marathon. Kudos for using the full word rather than the contracted version, but it doesn't give you that much credit :P

Egotism: Drop It

Let's face it: people are arseholes. There exists not a soul out there who isn't out for self; all we have are those people who make a strong effort to ditch their inner arsehole. The internet is, at times, little more than a tool people can use to shovel shit on an international scale. We all think we're better, we all think we're stronger, and we all think we're entitled to more and more; I think we've got a problem here. You can probably think of multiple instances where you have either been subjected to blatant vanity, or have been the vain one yourself. We see superiority when we see something different to what we are, have, or believe in, as we instantly focus on the (supposed) positives of our own ways while emphasising the negatives of whatever the other person is, has or thinks. It's this kind of selective and exclusionary thinking that abuses the exposition as a form of expression, because we only pick what will support our case rather than what will support, simply, a resolution. We think the goal of arguing is to prove that we're right, not that someone is right, and when people don't back down when they're beat, that's when all hell breaks loose.

This has been going on since humanity started: one group thinks and acts one way, another group thinks and acts another way, then both groups set up armies, meet in the middle and try to wipe each other out. You just have to look to Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Israel & Palestine, advertising, celebrities and the school yard to see this in practise. The country I live in wouldn't exist as it does if the British hadn't have thought so highly of themselves! The only reason they're here is because they ran out of room in their own country to store prisoners - if you stole so much as a loaf of bread, and you were caught, that was yo' ass - and so they stole procured an entire continent to deal with the overreaction decline of human morals in their country. The indigenous peoples of this country had been here for about 50,000 years before colonisation, and the British ran in to and killed plenty as they developed this country in to what it is today, under the reasoning that the land was "terra nullius," or the "land of no one." That, ladies and gentlemen, is pure and unadulterated egotism: "we think we're better than you, so much so that we don't think you qualify as human. We're now going to do with your land what we please. Cheerio!"

The internet is, of course, full of it too. Just today, I was reading my YouTube comments and came across an astoundingly pompous individual who commented on the Windows: LBP Edition video I uploaded at the end of last year. This is one of the most viewed, if not the most viewed, recording of a LittleBigPlanet 2 BETA level, and for good reason: it shocked people with just how far people were taking the level editor. See, I'm just as bad: I just had to mention that it's the "most viewed" video, rather than just saying it got lots of views (which, after looking at the hit count for my other videos, is true :P) As I was saying, it got lots of attention, and with that attention came a lot of praise. People were spreading it because they thought it was good and that others should see it; it was a technical achievement no on saw coming. Then this guy comes along and says "Not actually that amazing!" going on to describe an e-mail system he supposedly made in the original LittleBigPlanet. In a 2nd comment, he took what he said back (which is pathetic in itself,) but claimed that in a few months, he "shall be your competitor!" "your" referring to the authors of the level.

... what is this I don't even... seriously, what the fuck? It's LittleBigPlanet! You make levels... for fun... to share! Why is this douche turning it in to a competition? I mean, he was outdone for starters: creating an e-mail system is nothing compared to creating an entire operating system! E-mail systems go inside operating systems; his level would have been a mere feature in the acclaimed creation! But, to then go ahead and say "I'll fight you!" in an aspect of the game that has no outright competitive purpose is ridiculous! It doesn't surprise me after looking at the username, though: it had "1999" on the end, which means I can safely assume he's only 11-12 years old, and 11-12 year-olds are really, really big arseholes simply by nature. I saw some other kid claiming he cleared Chimpanzee's "Pegged" level with 3 balls remaining... and? What do I care? What does anyone care?

Sometimes, you have to be egotistical! It's part of the task at hand! Writing a resume or CV is the perfect example: how do you write one without being a totally self important twat? You can't! The whole point of a CV or resume is to make yourself look better than all the other people writing CV's and resumes! You're advertising yourself, slowly becoming nothing more than a product that can write its achievements on paper. It's hard to write them, too! For some reason, when you go to write one... you stop being an arsehole! You actually stop to consider the other four or five poor bastards whose livelihoods and families you could destroy by going through with this! It's the worst time for it to happen. Sometimes other people are egotistical for you! They announce something "wonderful" or "terrific" that you've done and make you look like an even bigger arsehole! And, if it's in the workplace, you've already had to show your CV or resume, and now they've been told this! Now, you're the biggest arsehole in the building!

Yeah... we're just a big bunch of arseholes... it's the ones with their pants down that get to me :P

Revenge: A Dish Best Served with a Side Order of Concrete

Having been through the vast majority of my school life, I've gotten through relatively unscathed, at least as far as bullying and attacks are concerned. I've never been beaten in my life; I've been smacked a few times for not going to bed on time, but who hasn't :P My arse-whoopings are nothing compared to some I've seen and heard about. I have, however, been a victim of bullying in my early school life. I recall very vividly one incident where my food was stolen and thrown in a toilet. Needless to say, that shit's fucked up :P To make it even worse (even though it went over my head at the time) I'm fairly sure the kid who told me my food had been thrown in a toilet was the one who did it; I'd had no previous contact with him, so how else was he to know I was the owner of the food was unless he'd seen me with it? The fact that he was evidently a few years up from me (well, in school years, anyway; I'd have beaten the shit out of him in terms of mental capacity :P) contributes to the theory, but unfortunately, that's what it will forever remain... until some Back to the Future fan takes things way too far :P

Then you get shit like this:



Irrespective of what your opinion is as to what happened, let's look at this in an objective manner: Kid A was pissing Kid B off for a considerable amount of time. Kid B reached his breaking point, picked Kid A up and threw him face first in to a slab of concrete. This is just to separate the facts from the reporting; if I'm not mistaken, Ten News failed to show any responses openly panning Kid B's retaliation. This is unusual because that could mean they're trying to promote fighting back, even though I expect our media outlets to (subversively) promote submission out of self interest. Speaking of self-interest, Channel Ten sure did make the Education Minister look like one dumb motherfucker; schools are not one of the safest parts of our community, whether this kid got thrown or not. May I remind you that Channel Ten leans towards the conservative political agenda in this country, and the Education Minister is from the other side of the political spectrum, so she could have actually said more relevant shit that was worth broadcasting only to fall victim to subvert corporate slander. Or, maybe the editor's just a damned good troll :P

Seriously though, how can you trust a bunch of uneducated and emotionally sensitive human beings to make a safe environment? You don't just learn how to spell and count in school; you also learn how to deal with people who are fucking you around, and what you saw is just one of many methods available. What's amazing is that after further reading on the subject, the kid who was throwing the punches was in Year 7 (12-13 years old,) and the kid who was throwing the kid who was throwing the punches was in Year 10 (15-16 years old!) Hopefully the sevvie learned not to fuck with people twice his size unless he wanted to become a projectile in motion :P It reminds me of the bullfighting they do in Spain; you taunt that bull for long enough, and it will come at you with enough force to send each half of your body to different sides of the arena.

As far as I'm concerned, the younger kid got what was coming to him. I'm all for ironic punishment like that. Yes, some may see it as the victim being "no better than the offender," but there's no quicker way to make someone realise what you put them through by putting them through that same pain. Fuck that kid; he's just another unintelligent, unenlightened and undeserving stigma in our already polluted education system. Seriously, someone should take a mathematics textbook and shove it right up his arse. Use one of the senior text books; they're thicker, much thicker :P Use him as a pinata at the next school expo. Use him as a crash test dummy for driver education. Use him like he used his victim to cover up his own insecurities. I'd love to run up in to his school with a few chums armed with baseball bats, and just chase him, just to scare the shit out of him. A kid in high school has been around long enough to have the decency not to engage in senseless violent activity, so most of the responsibility lays on him here.

But, although I can't be certain, not all of it may. The sevvie's parents want the Year 10 kid to apologise! What the fuck for!? Your kid was punching him in the face and treating him like dog-shit for an extended period of time... he picked your kid up and threw him to the ground... seems about even to me! It's too late for apologies anyway, from both sides. Move on, you stupid motherfuckers! Be thankful that your children went through this at a stage in their life when their learning ability is still high and they could appreciate the lesson they've learned, instead of getting beaten by a gang when they're in their 30s and committing suicide. The parents could just be looking to get the blame off their backs, perhaps because they know how poorly they've raised this son of theirs and that their actions are actually the reasoning behind all this. Either stay out of it, or cop some of the blame; looking for retribution in an issue you aren't part of is just sad. The same could be said for the parents of the older kid too; he should know not to do what he did, but he fuckin' did it anyway! At least they aren't asking for compensation they don't deserve.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some baseball bats to acquire.