Cardboard surgery
January 31st, 2010
Archive
Posts Tagged ‘creativity’
Failing to fade away
January 27th, 2010
It all started so innocently.
In 2007 somebody had a funny photo. In that photo, a person was clearly doing something in a manner which would not lead to success in their endeavour.
The enterprising person in possession of this photo wrote “FAIL” on it, and posted the photo to the Internet. It was simple. It was clever. The photo (which I don’t remember, exactly, does anybody know what started it all?) was funny. The “FAIL” added something to it, and a meme was born.
In January 2008, failblog was born — it would eventually be sold for a profit several months later.
Three years later, and the meme is still going strong — surfing the Internet, FAIL photos are easily found in many locations. The FAIL blog now has a YouTube channel, and other sites devoted to the meme, such as English FAIL and Daily FAIL have risen. The meme now needs multiple supporting sites.
But why does the popularity endure? Has it not run its course?
Let us take the following example:
When I started to think about writing this blog post, this was the most recent entry at FAILblog. It was titled Wrestling Maneuver Fail. But who is failing? What are they failing at? It is far from clear to me — and probably far from clear to people who know wrestling — who is successful in this photo.
The funny part is that the wrestler on the bottom is holding the penis of the wrestler on the top. The photo is humorous on its own, but good captions are available:
Mom always said, “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Step one: squeeze.
or
Nearly pinned, Johnny used his infamous hand job move.
“FAIL”, however, fails to be witty, funny, or even descriptive. It is, however, the caption. But even when it is descriptive, there are several reasons why it should die out, and soon.
It is both old and uncreative
It seems most likely that FAIL is just a crutch for people who lack the intelligence, patience, or wherewithal to come up with something original. After all, how many times can you hear the same joke before it stops being funny?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to that question, but after three years of photos with FAIL written on them filling the tubes of the internet, most people should be well past their saturation point by now. This small corner of the internet would make the bet that when people DO laugh at a FAIL-photograph, it is in spite of the provided caption, and not because of it.
It has escaped into the wilds of the internet
The FAIL has managed to escape the photograph, into the wider Internet. Right now it seems largely confined to Twitter and video, but as a problem at Amazon last year shows, even the BBC can get on board with the juxtaposition of a subject and the word fail.
Video is closely related to photography, of course, and Twitter’s hash tags and character limit make it an ideal breeding ground in which FAIL could escape the “unimaginative, unfunny caption” status it currently holds, and make a break to the wider world.
It is already happening. And only you can help to stem that tide.
… and into the speaking world
That is, if it’s not too late.
A pet peeve of mine — and many others — is when people start to speak in text message or internet speak. Not in an “I less than three you” sort of way, but sounding out the letters LOL instead of either laughing or saying “that’s funny”. I worry that these people have had their brains melted by aliens, and are now trying to pass a word-of-mouth virus through the general population that will also destroy my own.
It certainly feels that way.
The final straw in this is when FAIL enters into the conversation. At least LOL and their like is simply a matter of people being unable to differentiate a chatroom from a conversation — they have communication difficulties, but not necessarily true mental deficiencies. Somebody who is incapable of expressing themselves, and instead bleats out a four letter, one syllable word, “FAIL!”. That person has a real problem.
I have heard it in conversation, sadly.
The time to act is NOW!
So, dear Internet, are you with me? We must stop the FAIL before it goes any further. Stopping it’s spread across additional mediums is simply not enough. We need to stop captioning funny photographs with the same four letters.
Humour should be simple, yes, but it also needs to be creative, original and insightful.
Let us stop the spread of FAIL before it becomes more than a meme. It begins with you.
Links to cure my jetlag
November 22nd, 2009
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Forget things? Perhaps you need a specially formulated nasal spray. Isn’t it fantastic to be living in The Future? |
| If you like to see Christmas shows over the holiday season during the year, and live in Minnesota, might I suggest A Klingon Christmas Carol? |  |
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Feel uncreative? Here are some eye exercises that can help. |
| When you receive bad service, do you tip anyways? If you’re one of the everyone-I-know who says “of course not”, be warned: You may find yourself under arrest. |  |
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Child porn users are getting smarter — they now use viruses to store their porn on other people’s computers so they will not get caught with it. This causes a side effect in which those who are the victim of the virus may be arrested as child pornographers. |
| We often hear of body image problems forcing people into eating disorders, and to become abnormally thin. In Mauritania, they have the opposite problem. Big is beautiful in Mauritania, so parents send kids off to “fat camp” where they are force fed until they are a size considered beautiful. |  |
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A former police officer challenges searches performed at airports — extremely interesting. Part one. And part two. |
| Having sex can lead to amnesia. Just wait until the abstinence folks get a hold of this. | This final entry in the weekly links is reserved for a photo, but I planned to choose a photo from the set below and put it here. The problem is that the photos are arguably Not Safe For Work. While your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend will likely just say “holy fucking Christ, what are you looking at?”, your boss might not appreciate it. They might. I don’t know your boss.
Besides, the photos are much better enjoyed as an entire series — one photo will likely not encourage you to click through. In any case, this is the link. Enjoy. Or avoid. Your choice. |
The purpose of blogging, structure and creativity
June 29th, 2009
I often wonder why other people write in blogs.
Blogging, to me, is a creative exercise. Many others who blog seem to be intent on furthering their careers, making money, or self-promotion. Still more pursue blogs that seem completely random, or detail the minutiae of lives that seem uninteresting. Perhaps this last group is also pursuing a creative exercise of their own.
The middle groups — particularly those looking for money — I do not quite understanding. I cannot fathom a means by which the Big Bad Blog could be profitable at all, never mind a true income generator of some sort. Often purpose-driven blogs follow some sort of blogging code, a set of rules which (it is claimed) guarantee success, or greatness, or something. Paint-by-numbers blogging.
Part of me wonders how this can work. Another part of me is amazed as the random, boring, and potentially creative last group of bloggers often follow many of these same rules. I imagine them thinking to themselves: I love to blog. I must follow the blogger’s code.
Like most people, I enjoy being creative. Writing, photography, drawing, singing, playing guitar — these are all things I enjoy. They are also all things I do too little of, which comes down entirely to inertia. Like most people, I simply find it easier not to do these things, despite the fact that I clearly love doing them. I find it easier to passively consume television shows, books, websites, movies and music that is created by others.
I have always enjoyed writing, but until the Big Bad Blog came along it went nowhere.
As a child, I would start to write stories. Unless they were for school, they would never reach completion.
As a teenager, I would write songs. Ad nauseum. These had a driving source: I was in a band, and we needed songs. So I would write, practice guitar, and sing into a microphone. Whether it was scheduled jamming sessions, peer pressure, or an attempt to keep up with my more-talented band mates, I felt pushed to work towards my creative endeavours on a regular basis.
When I hit University, these things stopped happening. There was nothing pushing me to write more songs, or to practice guitar. Habits don’t die overnight, but the frequency at which I engaged the creative parts of my brain continually diminished until reaching zero.
Creativity does not function well in a vacuum. It is amazing how having a schedule or holding the belief that others might be waiting for or expecting your creative output can get one’s creative juices flowing. Having limitless options might work for the geniuses amongst us — but many people, myself included, turn out much better art within boundaries, artificial or otherwise.
Is there a deadline? Narrow restrictions within which I must work? A subject? Must it be commercially viable? All these things create better art, even if they are not properly adhered to — breaking rules is an important part of art, but one that requires that those rules exist in the first place.
Searching the Internet, one can find plenty of rules that bloggers are supposed to adhere to. I chafe when I see these rules — not because they exist, but because I am convinced the writers believe that those rules should apply to me. They are supposed to be Generic Rules of Blogging.
The only rule to blogging, however, should be to have rules. What they are is up to you.
(Image found at Book of Joe)