That was my joke...

Don't steal it! I absolutely cannot stand when people tell a joke that you told them in the first place.  Now granted if I tell my father in New Hampshire a joke and he tells his golf friends, I won't know unless he tells me that they liked the joke. So that's not such a big deal. But if I tell a friend a joke walking to dhall, and then 30 minutes later when we get to class they tell it to a whole group of kids without giving me any credit, that's just annoying. At that rate, ask me to tell it, or at least mention that I told it before.  Sure, I probably did get it online, but since someone actively posted it that meant they wanted to share it with others to tell.  But I like getting a bit of credit if I find a real gem on a website, sue me.

Another pet peeve to go off of this: if you're going to "borrow" my joke, at least tell it correctly. If I hear you butcher a stellar gag that I previously let you in on, that's just embarrassing.  Again, ask me to tell it if you're going to tell it.  I was annoyed in the first place when you snatched my joke, but now you look careless and kind of dumb, honestly. Don't do that to yourself. It's pointless.

In the second half of a reading I did, called "An Introduction to the Blog", the author discussed a brief history of communication.  At one point, he talked about the period where oral narratives were the most common way of sharing stories or accounts.  I think blogs are kind of a new "oral narrative" because even though they aren't necessarily spoken (unless someone is a video blogger), they get shared and passed on. Blogs tend to keep their original message in a sense.  Oral narratives are kind of like that first grade (okay, freshman year of college...) game "telephone" where you and your friends sit in a line and whisper a message down to the end and see how much it changed.  I guess blog posts can change in that people can share them, then edit them by adding their own opinions and comments. But the original message is intact when it gets to the end.

Just don't steal other people's stuff. It's obnoxious.

Stop the spam statuses...

"Hi my name is Amy Bruce, I am 7yrs old and I have a large tumor on my brain and severe lung cancer. The doctors say I will die soon if this isn't fixed, and my family can't pay the bill's. The Make A Wish Foundation has agreed to donate $7 for every time this message is sent on. For those of you who send this along, I Thank You so much. But for those who don't send it, I will pray for you. Please put this as your status for an hour"
-repeated countless times on my Facebook newsfeed this evening


Are you kidding me? I read this once and it sounded fishy.  Rather than repost a status about this ailing young child who desperately needs my help, I googled the name Amy Bruce. I figured if she was real, ABC or some news network would have snatched this story up and made a heartfelt Sunday night special out of it. However, the first link that came up under the search was to a website that debunked the message as spam.  It originally went around via email in the 1990's.  Now, it has reappeared via new media (Facebook).


In the first 10 pages of Barlow's "An Introduction to the Blogs", he outlines the public sphere in terms of the blog.  One of his essential points is that a blog brings power back to the people or the bloggers about what their main topics will be.  This power is taken from the media who would otherwise report about what they want the public to talk about.  Now, the public has gained control on what will become buzz.


Here's my question. What if the buzz is completely worthless? Some of this is a waste of time, time I don't have to be wasting away. Spam occurs on blogs too. As does sudden yet short-lived trends on topics most people could care less about. What about when posts are made and they are somewhat idiotic? There was literally no factual basis in the above quote. Yet people took it as true and passed it on. Blogs are a place for us to learn from one another. But what happens when what we're teaching others isn't even true?  I don't know. I guess we'll find out.




All I know is I hate spam with an intense passion.