Statements, None Intended as Factual

Apparently, some internet quack decided to make a clone of me. You might think I'd support that. I mean, twice the awesomeness, right? Wrong. Why would I want to compete against myself for the Most Awesome Dude award?

Anyway, something in the genetic programming must have gone wrong, because my clone is NOT ME. He uses a lot of the same words and phrases, but he's got a whole different life. Turns out he's an OK guy. He's got a job writing copy for spam email subject lines and fortune cookie messages. He's been to France. I'm proud of the little feller, so I thought I'd share some of his tweets so you can get to know him.

He takes music very seriously:

An example of one of his spam email subject lines. I believe he won a spammy for it:

 One of his fortune cookie messages. The FDA made him add the second part:

On the importance of being certain of a pronoun's antecedent:

Transcribed from his pop-culture podcast. Great episode:

No subject is out-of-bounds. He's a rebel like that:

Using super secret spy code:

Predictions about the future of the NBA:

From his poem, "Leftover Candy":

From a review of Radiohead's The King of Limbs, on the subject of the video for their first single, "Lotus Flower":

 Turns out he penned a lot of the lyrics for Arcade Fire's most recent album:

Translation problems during his vacation to France:

On growing up on the mean streets of Burlington, VT:

Mocking his opponent, pre-showdown:

On his own future:

Love in the Time of Memes

The fact that you're reading this tells me that you already agree with me when I say the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. It's as if someone took those slices of bread, reconnected them with wires so they'd communicate and form a "virtual" loaf of bread, and said to the world, "Let's make sandwiches." And then a million idiots raced to be the first to mash their Bugle©-riddled fingers into a slice of that bread so it could communicate to all the other slices of bread that they had been, in fact, the first person to do just that. And then somehow the whole thing became about Nazis.

All in all, I'd give that little analogy about a "B." And if that analogy was confusing, that's because so is the Internet. Confusing and awesome.


If you're not familiar with how the Internet is confusing and awesome, you're doing it wrong. You have got to get into memes, friend. They explain everything. Allow me to elucidate:

How many memes are there? OVER 9000. FACT.

What does a meme do exactly? IT CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER. LULZ. FACT.

Can I start my own meme? NO, ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. FACT.

How do I respond to a meme? 1) DANCE LIKE A FAT LONELY NEW JERSEYAN, 2) TURN DRAMATICALLY LIKE A HAMSTER, 3) SNEEZE ADORABLY LIKE A BABY PANDA, 4) FLY LIKE A SPAGHETTI MONSTER, 5) WITH A LIBERAL INTERPRETATION OF WHAT A VENN DIAGRAM IS, MAKE A VENN DIAGRAM. FACT.

I think I've been PRETTY CLEAR about memes. If you need a "super technical" explanation because you're a "übernerd," here goes: Memetic is a language composed entirely of clichés and idioms. As it originates with so-called "new" media, it could be said that it is composed entirely of "new" clichés and "new" idioms. The Memetic vocabulary expands rapidly, although many terms become archaic rather quickly due to a lack of popular usage. Memetic is unique in communication because the sender never encodes any message and the receiver never decodes any message; rather, the code is the message itself, thus replacing any meaningful communicative connection entirely with synthesized noise.

Ergh. Glad that boring stuff is over. It's so much like thinking, which is exhausting to say the least. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go explain to everyone why they're wrong all of the time. In my earlier analogy, it's like they're using fucking potato bread or something. I mean, OMGWTF is that?