That's fucking stupid

Archive for the ‘Roundup’ Category

Holy shit, it feels like ages since I got really really angry with something and felt the need to vent my rancid bile on here. Unfortunately I have not really been outraged much recently despite lots of things happening which would make me outraged if I could be bothered to break my new policy. I now officially don’t care about anything which I have either a) not witnessed or which b) does not have any effect on my life.

So let’s see what’s been going on…

1. Postal strike – Fuck ‘em. I use email, telephone, SMS and even a fucking fax to stop me having to queue up with all the Jeremy Kyle addict job seekers and piss drenched pensioners to buy a stamp. Although I order quite a lot online it is all shipped by couriers who deliver shit when they say they will and don’t run my packages past sniffer dogs.
2. Cock eye the racist man on Question Time – Didn’t watch it because it was entirely the most predictable thing ever. Had they had my choice of panelists (Germaine Greer, Stephen Fry, William Hague and the now embalmed late Lord Sutch) then I would have watched it because it would have been fucking hilarious. To all the dicks that protested outside the BBC – well done you cocks for making more people watch that sideshow freak be verbally abused by Jack ‘twat’ Straw, you cheapen everything my making a Labour Politician look good. Incidentally I don’t like Wonky Eye because he’s a grubby little herbert who would have been buggered senseless if he’d gone to my school but I do quite like the BNP; not because their policies have any sense whatsoever, more because they make the Conservatives look quite reasonable and middle of the road.
3. Jan Moir – Does anyone with an opinion worth caring about actually read the Daily Mail? It’s entertaining but surely nobody actually confuses the scribblings of their lunatics as news. So some cow hates gays – newsflash at 10. Worse things are written in public toilets and yet they are still a more legitimate news source than the Daily fucking Mail.
4. We’re still in a recession – no shit, Sherlock. I still have a job so I don’t fucking care. I also don’t have massive debts or a crippling mortgage because I haven’t spent the last ten years being a cunt. It’s not like we didn’t see this coming; anyone who has read anything about the last time Labour fucked up the country by spending more than they had should surely have known that it was all going to go very very wrong.

So there you go: fuck all of interest is going on. Go back to enjoying your pleasant little life in a bubble and feel free to ignore the self important media types who keep telling you to be outraged about stuff which really doesn’t matter because it won’t stop your Saturday lie in or your [insert whatever the hell it is that makes your life bearable] from being really really fucking great.

We listened. We do that a lot but this time we didn’t laugh and slag you off behind your back. Alternate URL has less swearing in it but sweary one works just fine too.

We at TFS always like to hear the opposite side of the story from ours. We love to read other people’s opinions and well thought out ripostes.

But what we love even more than that are stupid people. People who have mastered the art of the hysterical keyboard mash, and who invariably fall into one of two categories:

1. Those who use the words “100%” in their posts, despite being an uneducated mouth-breather who will spout any form of quasi-reasonable sounding drivel as long as it comes from someone similarly white, middle class and boundlessly stupid. Daily Heil types, you know who they are.

2. Those who assume ironic, pseudo-pretentious poses and are utterly, utterly convinced that this impresses people with how clever he is, when in fact we openly attempt to bait him so that he will carry on churning out his own auto-back-patting postings with the aid of a thesaurus and a jar of Ribena.

We shall call them Trolls.

The Troll is a curious beast. It may lurk around in dark corners of the internet, avoiding sunlight, showers and nutritional food, and only delurking when suitably riled. These types are blessedly easy targets – it’s kind of like waving a steak at a pissed-off pitbull. You just know it’s gonna bite and bark and jump about like its arse is on fire, yet you do it anyway, don’t you?

This type will snap at the first provocation and will undoubtedly believe that TIPING THIGNS IN CAPS MAEKS THEM TRUE, I KNOW 100% THIS IS FACT!!!1.

They are the intellectual equivalent of the Youtube commentor. They haven’t really got much past the evolutionary equivalent of the “OMFG U’R SO GHEY” argument. These people are impossible to reason with; would you reason with a dog that shits on your rug then looks at you, proud of the steaming pile of turd he has produced?  No. You slap it down and banish it back to the dark corner whence it came.

Typical Internet Troll

Such Trolls as fall into category 1. have a propensity to use percentages to demonstrate FACT(TM). A prime example would be “i may not be medically trained but i am not stupid…i am the mother of a boy with acquired autism and i know 100% it was the MMR which caused the autism”.

It’s important to emphasise that Trolls like this are immune to reason (despite being against vaccinations, ironically enough) and do not let a plethora of studies and scientific evidence sway them from the path of FACT(TM). They are the only person in the debate in possession of FACT(TM), despite being a hysterical keyboard-basher jumping on an already-dismissed panicwagon created from an unholy mix of conviction that the authorities are conspiring against them and plain old middle class TEH FEAR. Of what? Who knows; maybe daylight, or other people, or rational, reasoned dialogue (most likely).

Trolls like this can be relied upon to descend in to badly spelled CAPSLOK RIDDEN HISTERIA at any point, which is always a really, really good indicator of your intellectual credibility.

They genuinely, really and truly believe that they alone are the maverick free-thinker among the sheeple masses. This makes them ripe for a bit of delusional paranoia – a really good Troll won’t let something lie until they have demonstrated their conviction that some government agency somewhere is watching them / withholding vital evidence that will prove the Troll right beyond all doubt, and that the lack of evidence to support their paranoid delusion is “pretty CONVENEINT, eh???!1”

Whilst fun to play with, having a set-to with someone like this is the rough equivalent of bear-baiting. Sure, it’s fun to see them shuffling and grunting and flailing whilst you repeatedly poke them, but it gets old pretty quickly.

The fun starts when one of the other types of Troll shambles onto the scene. The ones that are just about intelligent enough to believe they’re a wit, when in fact they’re only half a one.*

Such types will often come across in their posts as making painful yet hilarious attempts to sound supercilious and aloof, usually through the misuse of sarcasm. Phrases such as “Yes, splendid idea! let’s all do what you say, because obviously you know better than anyone else!” feature quite heavily in the blatherings of this particular Troll variant. Note that this Troll has picked up on the fact that the CAPS LOCK SARCASM approach does not work, and instead treads dangerously close to irony through reckless use of the Italics command.

Tragically, both of our pets have dropped off the radar. No doubt Bulldog has retreated to his kennel; no doubt  FrMaRiRoLu is busy creating more tinfoil hats to tide her through the summer.

So, we’re hiring. We need another pet Troll at whom we can poke much fun, wind up and who preferably contains just enough intelligence to make what they mash out in a sweaty, hysterical frenzy the type of stuff that makes people want to point and mock and laugh.

Any takers?

*Thank you Terry Pratchett for that line; you are a flying spaghetti monster among men.

Oh noes! The American gay movement doesn’t like new Sacha Baron Cohen film Brüno because they claim it enforces gay stereotypes and will actually confirm and entrench the prejudices of those who think gays ought to die a fiery death morally object to man-love (because let’s face it, it’s never the lesbians people have problems with, is it?).

Maybe. But then what do you think these people do?

Scary Mary!

And these people:

Holy Homo, Batman!

And these people:

I don't even fucking know.

Why?

Quite frankly (and yes, for those of you who are interested, I am queer), they’re fookin’ wierd looking. Now, I’m a veteran of a fair few British Pride events; I’ve marshalled at a few, been in the parades of a few, and run a fetish stall at most. So I’m pretty broad minded and can appreciate, even embrace, the variety of the queer identity.  I love the identity in all its forms. But others don’t and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that.

It isn’t films like Brüno that reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices of the homophobes out there; it isn’t even the sheer aggressiveness of the bolder elements of the queer identity; it’s the fact that this aggressive and colourful edge of homosexuality is the one that is most visible to society.  It’s the only slice of queer life that the homophobes see, because everyday, workaday gay couples living a life together in quiet harmony just isn’t exciting enough to be celebrated, apparently.

If all a born-again homophobe sees of the gay culture are examples such as the pictures above, is it any wonder they back away in horror? The only time they come into even remote contact with the queer lifestyle, they’re having sex, S&M and transvestism pushed in their faces.

Now I like all 3 of those things, but that doesn’t mean I want it (metaphorically) shoved down my throat. Brüno not only sends up the prejudices and outright nasty attitudes of homophobes in America, but also the prevailing attitudes of the queer community. We can be camp, gauche, shallow, effeminate, and obsess over our hair and nails. There are gay people out there who embody the character that Brüno mocks.

When Kathy Burke as Waynetta Slob declared that she wanted a brown baby just like all the other mums on the estate, was anyone up in arms at the implications of someone wanting a brown baby? No. Why? Because it was funny; it played off against the stereotypes of “broken” families with absent black fathers. It sent up the women idiotic enough to say “I want a brown baby”. It mocked the serious underlying political situation as much as it did the people causing it. That’s what satire is, people; at least try and remember that.

True, we’re not all like Brüno; but some of us are, and we’re fucking hilarious, quite frankly.

Oh, and see this site for genuine gayby accessories.  Brüno didn’t make it up – the gay community did, and Baron Cohen is sending us up.

Brüno just plays off an already-existing culture and vocabulary. So don’t blame a satire for poking fun at a culture already notorious for its camp, flamboyant, effeminate, gauche, appearance-obsessed members.

If you think that such stereotyping is harming the gay agenda (which as everyone knows is 1. be allowed to marry and 2. have fabulous hair), then take a good long look at the people in the queer community who are propagating such an image.

Blaming a film for an already existing culture is cowardly and pointless. Just because gays are in the news for gay marriage and gay adoption and general gay rights doesn’t give us automatic privilege to be offended just because someone makes a joke involving our lifestyle.

Relax, fellow gays – be fabulous.