Three unrelated things

[ordinaryfool]

Those fake-news-story statuses on Facebook that are really just football fan taunts really annoy me. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're probably better off. And if you find them amusing, maybe you just have a better sense of humor than I do, I don't know. But I think I'm kind of losing interest in FB in general, now that I think about

Comments

[ladynorbert]

I haven't seen any fake news statuses on FB; fortunately, most of my friends don't care enough about football to post anything like that. It sounds obnoxious.

[ordinaryfool]

Just in case you don't see tilvictory's comment, here's a variation of the example she posted:

BREAKING NEWS: More Dead Birds Found in US.
In another strange twist of fate, it has just been reported that The CDC is sending a team to Philadelphia as 53 DEAD EAGLES turned up on Lincoln Field. Speculation is the dead birds were subjected to repeated blunt force trauma. The CDC has issued a warning to Georgia as they fear a similar outbreak is looming for FALCONS in the area over the next 7 days.

I think this is the first one I remember seeing on FB, and I hate it the most because it "got" me, as the "headline" made me think it was a serious news story at first. There have been all kinds of copy-cat ones since then. Since I live in Wisconsin, where following the Packers is practically a religion for a good part of the population, it's hard to avoid.

[tilvictory]

HATE THOSE STATUSES. HATE. Seriously. I want to write some snarky status about them, but football fans would just gripe at me. They're not funny or original-"the news reported that birds will drop out of the sky after Sunday's game!" "It's Bear hunting season!" blah blah. Facebook meme statuses never fail to irk me. You've seen one once, you've seen them all.

[tilvictory]

ladynorbert, here's an example:

WARNING*** The National Weather Service has issued a falling bird warning for Atlanta today from 6:30pm and continuing until the end of the fourth quarter! Falling Falcons could be heavy at times especially around the Georgia Dome area.
***REPOST IF YOU'RE A PACKERS FAN!***

[ordinaryfool]

I'm glad I'm not the only one! I'm a little afraid to write anything snarky on FB about them, to be honest, because too many of my friends seem to find them funny, and I fear the repercussions. I'm a wimp, heh.

But I agree about the meme statuses in general. I don't care if not reposting your "clever" little statement makes me a bad person/means Jesus won't love me/whatever. I think it's dumb and I'm not going to do it.

[tilvictory]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought they were dumb, either. My comment came off as heavy-handed, but I'm glad you agree that they're dumb and not clever. (My football friends love 'em, too.)

Meme statuses are the 21st century's chain letters :P Just dislike sifting through bad statuses to try and find ones I actually want to comment on. Meh.

[ewanspotter]

You gonna read Sherlock Holmes in "Detective Novel" (OH COME ON YOU HAVE TO)? Or is that too ~mainstream.

[ordinaryfool]

We are! First novel we're reading is Hound of the Baskervilles. I'm ashamed to admit I've never read any Sherlock Holmes before, but I'm definitely enjoying it so far :)

p.s. My professor for American Lit/Lit Crit is currently obsessed with Supernatural, and it made me think of you. She went on a tangent in one class about the whole homosocial dimension of the show and fanfiction and such and got really excited about it.

[ewanspotter]

Excellent! Baskervilles is the most famous Holmes novel, mostly because it was published years after Doyle killed Holmes off and people were begging for new Holmes. Doyle was writing this novel, couldn't come up with a good detective figure for the mystery, and then decided to make it a Holmes novel... but it would take place before Holmes died, so he wasn't really resurrecting him. I didn't love it as much as some of the other stories though. I much more prefer a Study in Scarlet, where Watson meets Holmes for the first time. (The long Mormon section aside.) Holmes is much more overtly bastardy to Watson in Baskervilles for some reason.

P.S. Your teacher clearly has good taste. (What was the context of the fanfic talk?)

[ordinaryfool]

That's really interesting. Our professor mentioned that Doyle had killed Holmes off and then brought him back, but I didn't know the part about him trying to come up with a new detective. But I'm definitely going to have to read the rest of the Holmes stories...you know, once the semester ends and there's time for "fun" reading again, heh.

p.s. Supernatural came up in class again today! This time with pictures. I can't remember how it came up in American Lit - I think she was just mentioning that it was her current obsession - but in Lit Crit (same teacher for both classes, in case I didn't make that clear) she was using it as an example of fans interpreting a text in ways that may have been unintended by the creators. In her handout she had a bunch of stills of Sam and Dean in each others' arms and whatnot, showing how things could easily be coded in a homoerotic way....She was really into the whole topic, but I think most of my classmates just think she's a little crazy. :D