User talk:174.224.17.78

Teh lolcats
If you want to argue your universal anti-lolcatism, you might want to create an account and take your case to the Saloon before trying to change it all. It might be futile though. Bongolian (talk) 22:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. As it stands right now, my argument would be about public perception and the blight of anachronistic memes. It's a pretty innocuous change. Although it could be interpreted as me projecting my revulsion onto everyone else. I just don't know if I can come up with a real, convincing screed about this, nor do I know if I have the drive to do so. Also I'd be a brand new account and a former lurker who doesn't even track the edits I very occasionally make. Maybe it would be futile. I feel weird even having taken the time to type this.
 * But it really, really is gross tho 174.224.17.78 (talk) 23:02, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. I can't articulate for shit anyway. 174.224.17.78 (talk) 23:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * P.P.S I thought this was supposed to be *Rational* Wiki 174.224.17.78 (talk) 23:06, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't have any strong feelings about it, but I think others do. You're welcome to create an account for yourself in general though. It might help people recognize you in future. An account also provides more anonymity than an IP address if you're interested.


 * See Essay:I thought this was supposed to be RATIONALWiki. Bongolian (talk) 23:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * drink 174.224.17.78 (talk) 23:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Lolcat, like any form of comedy, can be used well, or used poorly. In short it really depends on context. 23:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The more I think about it the more I realize it's just unfunny because it's aged out. Memes have an incredibly short shelf life as it is, since as a form of expression they're often very blunt and, well, pretty stupid or at the very least absurdist. They're viral, they sweep through the community/communities they originated in, then move on to other spaces on the internet, until everyone is familiar with them. This all happens very fast, as far as social phenomena go. There's a well-established set of cultural laws in effect here: things stop being novel/cool/funny once a) you've seen this thing already, and its novelty is depreciated, b) you know other people have seen this thing already, and its exclusivity is depreciating, and (this is where I'm going to lose a lot of people b/c it's an inherently insulting point, and I genuinely don't mean for it to be) c) once the people exchanging these memes or referencing them are old people, the nail is in the coffin, and the thing is dumb and their behavior is cringe-inducing. LOLCats is old as shit, it wasn't very funny to begin with.


 * Purposeful misspelling, in this case, "teh" in place of "the", gets a little more complicated, but there's still a good argument for why one has to be careful with how they go about the comedic art of purposeful misspellings. "Teh" is even older than LOLCats, and probably arose sometime in the Usenet days (no idea if this is true). Part of why purposeful misspellings are funny is that they involve both surprise and comedic timing, although I'm sure there's a lot more going on there than I can put into words. When you remove the element of surprise, you've zero'd out a term in the comedy formula, and that purposeful misspelling is no longer funny. "Teh" is super mega old, and hasn't been funny since I was like 13 (2004/2005). I distinctly remember thinking "teh" was fucking stupid back when I was even more fucking stupid than I am today. For anyone interested in getting a feel for what one can model purposeful misspelling on successfully, take a look at the phenomenon known as "Unintentional Alt Lit". Even that, however, is getting old. It will all get old, and stop being funny. VERY few complex comedic structures avoid this cliff.


 * As of right now, I think that's my argument. I made a lot of really broad explanatory claims (I made up a bunch of shit and called them cultural laws), but I'm sure I could come up with pretty good examples, and I'm sure the reader could too. I doubt it's gonna be of any use, though. If you still think that shit is funny, and you're a more well established user than I am, and in the majority of well established users, then my argument isn't gonna matter. It probably wouldn't matter anyway. But hey, I am surprised I was able to compose this shitty argument in the first place. 174.224.17.78 (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I think the lolcat-speak is pretty outdated and dumb as well. I haven't taken to removing all of it, but I support you doing so. 23:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I won't miss it. I think though it's a case-by-case basis as "teh gays" is widely used to mock the homophobes. But speaking in lolcat in of itself isn't that funny or necessary and it shouldn't be substituted for jokes or more meaningful commentary. 01:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This is Lolcats done wrong (to the degree that it's cringe worthy), this on the other hand, is Lolcats done correctly. 01:40, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I could easily be wrong, but I think a fair bit of it might be Human's fault. —Kazitor, pending 05:44, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I want to emphasize that I mean the authors in question no disrespect. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with article quality and use of LOLSpeak. I just think the quality for each of these articles could be improved a tiny bit more by removing the what is essentially just old stuff.


 * in fact, I think this can be viewed alternatively as a matter of keeping articles stylistically current, much in the same way it's important for a wiki to keep articles factually current, or updating them to reflect changing consensus. I feel like it's a more benign endeavor when framed this way, rather than only purging something a user doesn't like. It's a stretch, but I'm trying to come up with anything better than "because it's dumb".


 * Regarding good and bad use of LOLSpeak, there really isn't any good use anymore, there's sort of a false center there. Really, it's more of a "rough" to "makes me wanna die" continuum. I understand the idea that it acts as a mocking tone or an indicator of sarcasm, but there are many more ways to convey this than a rhetorical style inextricably tied to a series of awful popular memes from the Bush era. Just because it's used in a righteous manner doesn't make it any less unfunny.


 * It might also be important to distinguish "unfunny" from simply "bland". Something being comedically bland is more of a neutral term, whereas "unfunny" is to comedy as pseudoscience is to science (bear with me). Unfunny involves an earnest attempt at humor that falls flat on its face, so much so that it makes one more uncomfortable than if nothing had been said at all. This effect is well-established- there's even an entire alt-comedy sub-genre that plays on this discomfort, usually referred to as anti-comedy (Neil Hamburger, Andy Kaufmann). Dane Cook is bland. Old Flash cartoons about video game characters are "unfunny". "Cringe" used to refer to this specifically, although I often shy away from the word now, because, like so many others, it's been largely co-opted by the alt-right/manosphere as central to their online bullying ethos. Nevertheless, it is a good descriptor for the severe end of unfunny.


 * Unfunny also seems closely tied to nostalgia, only in the sense that it seems like we often remember something fondly, as if it were exceptionally funny, until we encounter that content again. This is a make or break point; it can either reinforce our belief about that content being funny, often in some sort of qualifying context (the style of comedy at the time, our age at the time of first viewing, etc...), or backfire horribly, where our new contact with it is extremely unpleasant, perhaps because in the present context is is very different from what we now consider funny. The emotional contrast between the vague, nostalgic fondness for something and the sudden disgust with that thing marks the experience of said it as not only no longer funny, but explicitly unfunny, painful, and/or repulsive.


 * I think that's all I've got to support my claim. I'm glad a few others chimed in. All I need is ambivalence really, since the issue with what I'm doing would come from direct disagreement as opposed to simple indifference. Active approval is great too, but not necessary.


 * P.S. I promise I'll make an account. I just keep participating in RW on a whim rather than purposefully trying to be a good, consistent user/contributor, which I would really like to be. If it's not already clear, this is the BoN who started this whole mess, just with a different BoN for some reason that probably has to do with my wi-fi network/cellular hotspot. Cheers, Alex. 71.238.82.20 (talk) 16:22, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Has been crushed to death under the wall of text 16:24, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I thought about the much words I was shitting out on this page while shitting it out. But I was sort of under the impression that long-winded arguments were par for the course on talk pages. It definitely looks like it. Not just arguments espoused by cranks, but also what seem to be established, sane users. I don't think the length of these replies is that out of the ordinary, but the subject generating that length probably is. I care though. 71.238.82.20 (talk) 16:31, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The joke is merely in response to the comment's length, not its content. 16:33, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah. I conflated it with tl;dr or something like that. I'm just trying to figure out discussion etiquette here so that I can be a top tier poster.
 * [ "Does this work?" Figured out how markup for italics √ ] 71.238.82.20 (talk) 16:40, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Radical. I'm so, so sorry —Kazitor, pending 00:17, 11 June 2018 (UTC)